Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

Huddersfield Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Bill [Lords].

Bill to be read a Second time.

Private Bills (Petition for additional Provision) (Standing Orders not complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bills the Standing Orders have not been complied with, namely:

London and North Eastern Railway (General Powers) Bill.
Southern Railway Bill.

Reports referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

Thornton Cleveleys Improvement Bill (by Order),

Consideration, as amended, deferred till Thursday.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BRISTOL) BILL,

"to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the city of Bristol," presented by Sir Kingsley Wood; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 78.]

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (FALMOUTH) BILL,

"to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the

borough of Falmouth," presented by Sir Kingsley Wood; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 79.]

Private Bills (Group A),

Sir Henry Jackson reported from the Committee on Group A of Private Bills; That Mr. Edward Dunn, one of the Members of the said Committee, was not present during the sitting of the Committee this day.
Report to lie upon the Table.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Matlock) Bill,

Reported, with Amendments.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Luton) Bill,

Reported, without Amendment.
Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Bridport Joint Hospital District) Bill,

Reported, without Amendment.
Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill,

Reported, with Amendments.
Bill, as amended, to lie upon the Table.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

London Midland and Scottish Railway Bill,

Reported, with Amendments.
Bill, as amended, to lie upon the Table.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Imperial Continental Gas Association Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment.
Bill to be read the Third time.

Great Orme Tramways Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment.
Bill to be read the Third time.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMIGRANTS (REPATRIATION).

Mr. DAY: asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of British subjects, as shown by the returns furnished by the principal steamship companies, that have been sent back to the United Kingdom by the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand authorities during the 12 months ended to the last convenient date?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): According to returns furnished voluntarily to the Board of Trade by the principal steamship companies, the numbers of British subjects among those passengers from the United Kingdom to places outside Europe who were sent back during 1935 by the authorities of Australia, Canada and New Zealand were nine, 104 and one.

Mr. DAY: Is that figure an increase on the previous year?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I cannot say without notice.

Mr. DAY: Are there figures of those who were repatriated from England to the Colonies?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: If the lion. Gentleman would like particulars, he had better put a question on the Paper, and I will see what can be obtained for him.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS.

Mr. DAY: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give an estimate of the sums paid in respect of films made abroad and exhibited in this country for the 12 months ended to the last convenient date; and how this compares with the amount expended on the hire of British films produced under the Cinematograph Films Act, 1927, for the comparable period?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: No information is available from official sources.

ANGLO-ITALIAN PAYMENTS AGREEMENT.

Mr. MANDER: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that under the Anglo-Italian Trade and Payments Agreement there was, on 5th February, £1,386,740 outstanding in this country to the credit of Italian exporters, whereas on 4th March there was £1,280,073 outstanding, while during the same period the total transfer into sterling for payment to United Kingdom creditors in Italy was, respectively, £3,730,660 and £3,798,620; and whether he will take steps to see that no transfers are made from this country which will lessen the amount of sterling available for British creditors?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am aware of the figures to which the hon. Member refers. The difference between the amount transferred to Italian exporters in the period 5th February-4th March, 1936, under the Anglo-Italian Payments Agreement, and the amount transferred to United Kingdom exporters under the Agreement in the same period is approximately represented by a corresponding increase in the balance available in the Sterling Account for payment to United Kingdom exporters. This balance has under the arrangements agreed with the Italian authorities to be used by them for payments to United Kingdom exporters in accordance with the terms of the Payments Agreement.

Mr. MANDER: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the working of this agreement?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: That is a matter of opinion.

RUSSIA (TINPLATE).

Mr. SORENSEN: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can now give any further information respecting the order for 700 tons of tinplate which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics intimated its intention to give to this country and which has been prevented by an international cartel; and whether this order is now being, or will be, placed in this country?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am unable to add anything to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member on 17th March.

Mr. SORENSEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries to see whether the statement in the question is true; if it is true, does he not consider it is detrimental to the trade of this country that the action of a cartel should be such as to divert trade in this way?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I informed the hon. Gentleman the last time he put a question on the Paper on this subject that negotiations were proceeding. While they proceed I do not care to say anything on the subject.

Mr. SORENSEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will find out as early as possible exactly what the position is?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: We are being kept well informed.

IMPORT DUTIES (TIMBER).

Sir PHILIP DAWSON: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that an application has been submitted to the Import Duties Advisory Committee for a revision of the tariffs on manufactured or semi-manufactured articles from timber; and whether he will take any steps possible to facilitate the early consideration of this urgent matter?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; but I have no doubt that the Committee will avoid any unnecessary delay in dealing with any application made to them.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

CEREBRO-SPINAL FEVER.

Mr. DAY: asked the Secretary of State for War the number of cases of cerebro-spinal fever reported and admitted to hospital at Aldershot and/or Catterick during the previous 12 months; and whether there have been any reports from other camps in Great Britain?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Duff Cooper): The number of cases of cerebro-spinal fever for 1935 were:—Aldershot, 7; Catterick, 2. In addition there were 14 cases from various stations throughout Great Britain, making a total of 23. The number of cases from 1st January, 1936, to date are:—Aldershot, 1; Catterick, 4. In addition, there were

7 cases at Woolwich, 2 at Chatham, and 1 at Windsor, making a total of 15.

Mr. DAY: Are these cases more prevalent in military camps than among the civil population?

Mr. COOPER: I must have notice of that question.

DISCHARGE (EDWARD CLARKE).

Mr. GROVES: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Edward Clarke, 13, Forest Street, Forest Gate, enlisted in the Royal Artillery, 29th March, 1928, No. 779951, and for six years 266 days he was accepted as a very fit man, and that he was transferred to the Army Reserve, December, 1934, an equally fit man, but was invalided from the Army Reserve, April, 1935, on account of disability alleged to have been contracted in civil life; and whether he will state the date of the medical examination which determined the decision?

Mr. COOPER: I am aware that the facts are as stated in the first part of the question. The date of the medical board which determined the decision referred to was 15th April, 1935.

PAY.

Mr. GALLACHER: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will take steps to remove the pay anomaly existing against those persons who joined the Army Reserve between September, 1931, and June, 1934, who receive remuneration of 9d. per day, whilst those who joined the Army before the earlier date or after the later one now receive pay of 1s. per day?

Mr. COOPER: I think the hon. Member is under some misapprehension in regard to this matter. The present daily rates of pay of Army Reservists who enlisted into the Army on or before 30th September, 1931, are: Section A, is. 6d.; Section B or D, 1s. Men enlisting into the Army after 30th September, 1931, are eligible for the following rates only on transfer to, enlistment into, or re-engagement for, the Army Reserve: Section A, 1s. 3d.; Section B or D, 9d.

TERRITORIAL ARMY.

Mr. ALBERY: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider altering the regulations so that


both officers and men of the Territorial Army may be eligible for long-service medals after 10 years' service?

Mr. COOPER: The Royal Warrants governing the award of the Efficiency Decoration and the Efficiency Medal, to members of the Auxiliary Forces throughout the Empire, were drawn up as recently as 1930 after very careful consideration. To make the change suggested by my hon. Friend would require the concurrence of the several Dominions, Colonies and Departments concerned, and I am not satisfied that any revision of the conditions is necessary.

Mr. ALBERY: Will my right hon. Friend make inquiries to ascertain whether this change is desirable because officers and men might remain longer in the service?

Mr. COOPER: I am willing to keep the matter under consideration.

Mr. ALBERY: asked the Secretary of State for War whether it is proposed to issue walking-out uniforms to the Territorial Army as an aid to recruitment?

Mr. COOPER: This with other suggestions to improve recruiting is under consideration.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: asked the Secretary of State for War which units of the Territorial Army have turned away recruits during the past year through being over strength?

Mr. COOPER: The information sought by my hon. Friend is not available at the War Office, and could only be obtained by circular inquiry of all County Territorial Army Associations who are responsible for the recruiting.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Will my right hon. Friend consider allowing units which can get more recruits to recruit above their establishment in order to off-set deficiences in other units?

Mr. COOPER: I will consider that.

Mr. TOUCHE: asked the Secretary of State for War which county councils allow their employés who are members of the Territorial Army to attend camp without loss of pay or normal holidays; and

whether he will consider making representations to all county councils as to the desirability of establishing this practice?

Mr. COOPER: The information asked for is not available at the War Office. I will, however, gladly consider my hon. Friend's suggestion.

COURT-MARTIAL (WOOLWICH).

Mr. THORNE: asked the Secretary of State for War why the lance-bombardier of a physical-training squad at Woolwich was not court-martialled for striking Lance-Bombardier James Hastie, of the Second Training Battery Depot, Royal Artillery; and what was the offence for which Lance-Bombardier James Hastie was court-martialled?

Mr. COOPER: Tie hon. Member appears to have been misinformed in regard to this case. Lance-Bombardier Hastie was not struck by anyone, but was himself arraigned before a district court-martial for the offence of striking a soldier.

Mr. THORNE: I must apologise for making a mistake in putting down the matter in the wrong way.

STAFF COLLEGE, CAMBERLEY.

Mr. WILSON: asked the Secretary of State for War the principal items comprised in the £629 a year, the cost for each student at the Staff College, Camberley?

Mr. COOPER: The principal items are as follow:



£


Military Staff (instructional)
114


Administrative Staff
212


Maintenance of buildings, fuel, light, water, barrack furniture, travelling, and carriage of stores, etc.
112


Buildings, rental value and rates
158

CADETS (ALLOWANCES).

Mr. WILSON: asked the Secretary of State for War the purposes to which the allowances to cadets (page 87 of Army Estimates) amounting to 69s. per week are put?

Mr. COOPER: The allowances to cadets at the Royal Military Academy and the Royal Military College average 27s. 11d. and 28s. 9d. a week respec-


tively, and not 69s. a week as stated. I would refer the hon. Member to the note at the bottom of page 85 of Army Estimates for information as to the purpose of the allowances.

CONTRACTORS (SERVICE EMPLOYES).

Mr. PORRITT: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, when allotting contracts for the War Office, he will make it a condition that the firms successfully tendering for such contracts shall give facilities for members of any of the auxiliary forces in their employ to be allowed to attend annual training without loss of wages and without loss of ordinary holidays?

Mr. COOPER: I fear that this suggestion is open to many objections, not the least important of which is the danger of deterring firms from employing members of the auxiliary forces.

CHAPLAINS (PAY).

Mr. THURTLE: asked the Secretary of State for War whether Army chaplains are paid on a basis of capitation grants or otherwise?

Mr. COOPER: Chaplains to the Forces receive pay and allowances as officers of the Army. Civilian officiating chaplains are normally paid at capitation rates.

Mr. THURTLE: Is not the system of payment an inducement to them to compel as many soldiers as possible to attend church parade?

Mr. COOPER: I am sure that they have other and far stronger inducements than that.

Mr. SORENSEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what the inducements are?

Mr. THURTLE: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has a very high opinion of the clergy?

Mr. COOPER: Yes, Sir.

CHURCH PARADES.

Mr. THURTLE: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will take steps to ascertain the views of commanding officers in the Home Command on the question whether or not the abolition of compulsory church parades would be popular with the other ranks?

Mr. COOPER: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

HOUSING.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR - WEDDERBURN: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is satisfied that Scottish local authorities are giving sufficient attention to architectural design, and other amenities, in the preparation of their building schemes?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Lieut.-Colonel Colville): The practical importance of design and amenity in housing schemes has been strongly impressed upon Scottish local authorities during the last few years and my right hon. Friend is satisfied that much more attention is being paid to the matter than formerly. A recommendation of the Scottish Architectural Advisory Committee that local authorities should submit sketch plans to the Department of Health for approval has been adopted and the architectural staff of the Department has been recently strengthened in order that these plans including design and amenity may be given expert scrutiny. The services of Professor Abercrombie as consultant architect are also available.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR-WEDDERBURN: Has my hon. and gallant Friend's attention been drawn to the new housing scheme for the burgh of Johnstone, and will be consider recommending to other local authorities the example of this burgh which has successfully addressed itself to this important subject?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I understand that good work has been done in that area, and I will consider the suggestion.

Mr. BOOTHBY: Has my hon. and gallant Friend directed the attention of local authorities to the report of the Department of Health for Scotland on continental housing?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The report is well known.

BORGIE LODGE, SUTHERLAND.

Mr. KIMBALL: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the total amount of money spent by the Department of Agriculture during the year 1935 in repairing and reconditioning Borgie


Lodge, on the Department of Agriculture s estate at Borgie, Sutherland; and why such expenditure was necessary?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The expenditure incurred by the Department of Agriculture in 1935 on repairs and improvements to Borgie Lodge amounted to £1,235 15s. 4d. The main structure of the lodge was an old building in need of considerable repair and the shootings themselves being attractive, it was considered necessary to renovate the lodge in order to improve the lettability of the subject.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Can the hon. and gallant Member say how many smallholders will be affected?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The area in question has been for some time let for the shooting, and the action taken by the Department has been in order to get an economic rent for something which they had in their possession.

Mr. KIMBALL: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the Department of Agriculture has now let Borgie Lodge; will he state the rent and term of years; and whether the full rent has been received?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The shootings and fishings on the Department's estate of Borgie, including the lodge, have been let for a period of 10 years as from Whit Sunday, 1935, at a rent of £550 per annum. The rental due to date has been paid.

Mr. KIMBALL: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that Borgie Lodge is no longer available for use as the village school; and can he say what was the cost of building the new school and who paid for this building?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I am aware that a room in Borgie Lodge is no longer available for use as the village school. The cost of the new school building was £442, and this was met by the Sutherland Education Authority from grants and rates.

Mr. KIMBALL: Does my hon. and gallant Friend think that his Department has executed a good bargain from the point of view of the taxpayer and the

local rentpayer in spending all this money on the lodge, at the same time leaving the local authority to spend money on providing a school?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Yes, Sir, because there is an increase of rent of £250 a year.

SURPLUS POTATOES (UNEMPLOYED FAMILIES).

Mr. JOHNSTON: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, in view of the success of the experiment of the Potato Marketing Board in the disposal of ware potatoes surplus to market requirements to the unemployed families in the Bishop Auckland district of Durham at the reduced price of 4d. per stone, he will consult with the Potato Marketing Board and arrange for a similar experiment in Scotland?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The attention of the Potato Marketing Board has been drawn to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion, but my right hon. Friend understands that, having regard to the present supply position, the board do not contemplate further experiments of this kind during the present season.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the shortage of potatoes at the moment is due to this policy of steadily reducing the acreage under potatoes, and will he again press on the Potato Marketing Board the desirability of increasing its acreage and extending such experiments as proved so successful in the case referred to in the question?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The position in reference to supplies is constantly under review by the Market Supply Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion has been brought to the notice of the Potato Marketing Board.

Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: Is it not a fact that the other day a farmer was fined £50 because he grew too many potatoes?

MILK MARKETING.

Mr. LEONARD: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland on what grounds he has come to the decision not to adopt the recommendations of the committee of investigation which recently reported


on the complaints of the distributors against the scale prices fixed by the Scottish Milk Marketing Board for the year 1935–36; and whether, in view of the indignation created in Scotland among distributors and consumers of milk by the announcement of his decision, he will reconsider the matter?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I am sending to the hon. Member a copy of the reply given on the 12th instant to a question on this subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen and East Kincardine (Mr. Boothby) to which my right hon. Friend has nothing to add. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative, but I would remind the hon. Member that the decision does not affect the prices of milk to the consumers or the provision for the reduction of these prices in the months of May and June.

Mr. LEONARD: Has the Secretary of State for Scotland any evidence other than was given at the inquiry which would entitle him to pay no attention to the recommendation of this committee which is supposed to be a safeguard for the interests of the public?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The Secretary of State exercised his discretion in this matter with all the knowledge which was available to him, and he acted in the way which would be fairest to the parties all round.

PRISONS (WORK, PRIVATE FIRMS).

Mr. J. J. DAVIDSON: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the names of private firms for which work is done by inmates of Scottish prisons?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: No, Sir. It would not be in the public interest to publish the information asked for. The amount of prison work involved in these orders is small in comparison with the work performed for Government Departments, and the orders are placed by a constantly changing number of firms.

Mr. DAVIDSON: Is it not the view of the Department that this practice should entirely stop, and can the hon. and gallant Member give any indication as to when the Department will take action to see that it is stopped?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I suggest that the hon. Member should read the

report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Prisoners, which was issued in 1933, and after he has read that report, which deals very fully with this subject, I shall be glad to try to answer any further questions he may wish to put.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: Could not the work done in prison for these private firms be done outside by other workers?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Again I would refer the hon. Member to the report of the Departmental Committee, which no doubt he knows well. Every effort is made to have regard to the possible effect of such work on outside competitors and to charge only fair market prices. I may say to the hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson) that every effort is being made to replace these private orders by Government orders and to make the percentage of private orders as low as possible.

Mr. DAVIDSON: Are the names of the firms mentioned in the report?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: No, Sir, the names are not given, but there is much information regarding the subject in general.

JUVENILE COURT (MARYHILL, GLASGOW).

Mr. DAVIDSON: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of children, 12 years of age and under, summoned to the juvenile court at Mary-hill division, Glasgow, and the number of convictions?

Lieut. - Colonel COLVILLE: During 1935, 150 children of 12 years of age and under were summoned, of whom 123 were found guilty.

Mr. DAVIDSON: Will the question of juvenile crime in Glasgow be further considered, as I understand there is great indignation at the number of convictions against children for perfectly trivial offences?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I shall look into the question which the hon. Member asks. The number of children found guilty last year was considerably less than in the year before in the area to which he refers.

Mr. LEACH: Can the hon. and gallant Member say what is the meaning of "guilty" as applied to a child of 12 or under?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The word is used purposely instead of "convicted," so that the child is not branded with a conviction.

Mr. HARDIE: Are the Government aware of a speech made last Thursday in Glasgow in which it was said that the increase in juvenile crime was entirely owing to the means test which had been put into operation?

MONEY PAYMENTS (JUSTICES PROCEDURE) ACT, 1935.

Mr. BUCHANAN: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has yet arrived at a decision on applying the provisions of the Money Payments (Justices Procedure) Act, 1935, to Scotland; and, if so, will he state such decision?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The inquiries which my right hon. Friend is making into this subject have not yet been completed, and I am not in a position to make any statement.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that in this matter Scotland is at a great disadvantage by comparison with England, and, in view of the considerable time the question has been under consideration, will he take steps to come to a decision at an early date?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: That will be done as early as possible, but there are large local authorities which have not yet given us the replies which we require.

ARREST (GOVAN).

Mr. BUCHANAN: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that on the 27th February, 1936, a sheriff officer entered the house of a Mr. Irving, residing at Howat Street, Govan, Glasgow, and took away from the home, under arrest, the wife and two children, one aged nine months and one aged three years, for an alleged debt of about £20 for certain articles of furniture; that the wife and child aged nine months were kept in prison at Duke Street one night and the other child was sent to Stothill; whether he is aware that during that time the husband was away at sea working; whether he has caused inquiry to be made; and whether he proposes to take any action against the

sheriff officer for his conduct to the woman and young children?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I have made inquiry and am informed that in May, 1931, Mrs. Margaret Irving entered into a hire purchase contract with the Hackney Furnishing Company, Limited, for the hire purchase of certain articles of furniture. Decree was obtained by the company (now in liquidation) and by the liquidator for delivery of the furniture and on 23rd March, 1935, Mrs. Irving was duly charged to implement the decree for delivery under pain of imprisonment. This charge was not complied with and the sheriff officer was accordingly instructed by the creditors to carry out the orders of the Court and the debtor was arrested on 27th February, 1936. One child of six months who needed maternal attention was admitted along with the mother to Duke Street Prison and the other child was taken charge of by the public assistance authorities. Part of the furniture in question was delivered to the creditors on the following day and the debtor was thereupon liberated. On the information before me it appears that the execution of the warrant by the sheriff officer against Mrs. Irving was regular. It will be noted that the contract which was the basis of these proceedings was concluded prior to the passing of the Hire Purchase and Small Debt (Scotland) Act, 1932.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Why were proceedings taken against the woman? If the money was owing, why were proceedings not taken when the husband was home from sea? Why did the sheriff officer deliberately wait until the husband was absent on a sea voyage? Cannot the Department take steps to see that in a non-criminal offence a child of six months is not marched to prison with its mother?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I shall be glad to discuss the circumstances of the case with the hon. Member. So far as the husband is concerned, my information is that the contract was not between him and the company but between the woman and the company, and therefore they could not take action against the husband. [HON. MEMBERS "No!"] I had inquiries made into the circumstances in which the child was admitted to prison, and the point I would emphasise is that since the Act of 1932


such cases will, I hope, be very rare indeed, but this contract was concluded before that Act operated.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: Why was it not possible to take the furniture instead of the mother and two children, seeing that the furniture was delivered and the woman released on the following day?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I could not answer that question without a lengthy explanation of the civil law. The action of the sheriff officer appears, upon the information of my right hon. Friend, to have been regular.

Mr. BUCHANAN: rose—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better put another question down on this matter.

Mr. BUCHANAN: It is difficult to cover this matter by question and answer. I will take an early opportunity of raising it.

HERRING INDUSTRY.

Mr. GALLACHER: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether in view of the serious plight of the herring fishing industry in Scotland what steps he proposes to take to give immediate assistance, pending the developments that may take place as a result of opening up markets in Russia, Palestine, the United States of America, and other countries?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The Government have recently agreed to make advances amounting to £100,000 to enable the Herring Industry Board to purchase redundant drifters, and to make loans for reconditioning drifters and the provision of new nets and gear. The Government are also providing, in the current Estimates, the sum of £35,000 for grants for promoting market development and schemes of research or experiment. These steps have been taken under the Act which was passed last year after a, comprehensive review of the herring industry. Grants for reconditioning vessels and for subsidising fishing operations and wages which have been suggested in representations made to the Government, are not permitted by the Act, and my right hon. Friend can hold out no prospect of legislation to alter the financial provisions of the Act.

Mr. GALLACHER: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman not aware of the fact that various councils in the area affected by the fishing industry have discussed this question and have come to the conclusion that the proposals are of no immediate value to the fishing industry and that something special must be done if the industry is to be saved? Will the Minister arrange for a meeting with representatives of these towns and the Scottish Members in order that this matter may be discussed and settled, as this is a very desperate situation?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I suggest that the scheme of the Herring Industry Board might have a fair trial because of the strenuous efforts they are making.

Mr. GALLACHER: Will the Minister not consider the suggestion of getting the representatives together?

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the Minister not aware that the trouble here is not the necessity for increased production but for increased consumption of the product, and can he do anything to increase the development of the home market for herring?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: This suggestion is very prominently before the Herring Board. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the matter is one of concern in the home market as well as the export market.

BUILDING TRADE (DISPUTE, INVERNESS).

Mr. BUCHANAN: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that a dispute has now been in progress for 21 weeks in Inverness between certain building trade unions and the local building trade employers owing to the latter refusing to recognise the national agreement arrived at both by employés and employers under the Scottish National Joint Council for the building trades, and that this is having serious effects on the provision of housing; and whether he proposes to take action to bring the parties together and to recognise trade union agreements?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Ernest Brown): Officers of my Department have been in touch with the parties to this dispute, and efforts to bring about a settlement are being renewed this week.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

LOCAL WELFARE COMMITTEES.

Mr. SHORT: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of local miners' welfare committees in existence during 1935; and whether there has been a tendency recently to discourage these appointments?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Captain Crookshank): I cannot give an exact figure, but I am informed that there are at present about 1,500 local miners' welfare committees. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative. On the contrary, I understand that the Miners' Welfare Committee have recently taken steps to encourage and assist these committees, and that their number tends to increase rather than to diminish.

COAL-SELLING SCHEMES.

Mr. SHORT: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he can make any statement as to the progress made in setting up coal-selling schemes?

Captain CROOKSHANK: These schemes are still in active preparation by the Central Council and the district executive boards, in consultation with my Department.

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: What precautions have been taken to protect the consumer against exploitation by the coal monopolies?

Captain CROOKSHANK: I cannot answer questions of detail without notice.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Could the Minister answer it as a question of fundamental principle?

MINERS' WAGES.

Mr. T. SMITH: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that the mineworkers employed by the Leeds Fireclay Company and Allen and Sons (Halifax), Limited, are not receiving the increase of wages granted under the recent agreement between the Mineworkers' Federation and the Mining Association; and whether, in view of the fact that these mines have always been regarded as part of the mining industry, he will have inquiries made as to why the advance has been withheld?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, I have made inquiries and I understand that both these minas produce only a negligible quantity of coal, all of which they consume themselves, and that therefore neither of them is a member of the Coal-owners' Association. I am further informed that the wages of their employés are not in fact regulated in conformity with the wages of coal miners, and that they suffered no corresponding reduction when the district percentages were revised in 1927 and 1928.

Mr. SMITH: Is the Minister aware that there has been a reduction in the wages in the mining industry during the last 10 or 12 years, and these men have suffered corresponding reductions; and will he not inquire why this discrimination has been made?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The statement of the hon. Gentleman is exactly contrary to what I have just stated; they have not suffered reductions.

Mr. SMITH: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at an early opportunity.

Mr. WHITELEY: asked the Secretary for Mines if he has ascertained whether, in keeping with the promises made, the miners' families are receiving the full benefit of the special advance in wages recently granted?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The promise made by the coalowners was that wage increases would be given to the full extent of the voluntary increases in contract prices for coal. I have every reason to expect that this assurance will be honoured.

Mr. ROWSON: asked the Secretary for Mines what was the average wage paid per man-shift worked in the coal mines of Lancashire; what was the average output of coal per man-shift worked in the year 1925; and can he give comparative figures for the year 1935?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Separate particulars for Lancashire and Cheshire for 1925 are not available. In 1935 the average cash earnings per man-shift worked were 9s. 2d. and the average out-


put per man-shift worked was 19.08 cwts. For Lancashire and Cheshire and North Staffordshire combined, the corresponding figures for 1925 were 10s. 0½d. and 14.68 cwts. and for 1935, 9s. 4d. and 20.35 cwts.

STATISTICS.

Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: asked the Secretary for Mines what was the output per man at the coal face in Yorkshire for December, 1927, and December, 1935; what was the output per person working at the mines in Yorkshire for the same dates; and what were the wages for December, 1927, and 1935?

Captain CROOKSHANK: In December, 1927, the average output per man-shift worked at the coal face in Yorkshire was 56.06 cwts. and per manshift worked by all workers 22.06 cwts. The average cash earnings per manshift worked by all workers employed below and above ground was 10s. 5.10d. The corresponding figures for December, 1935, were 72.46 cwts., 27.15 cwts., and 10s. 4.57d.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: Is it the fact that the miners, according to the Minister's answer, have produced about 18 cwt. per shift more, and have received 6½d. per day less for doing it?

Mr. GRIFFITHS: asked the Secretary for Mines what were the profits in the Yorkshire coal mines for January and February, 1936, separately?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The average profit per ton of coal disposed of commercially in Yorkshire in January, 1936, was 2s. 2½d. Similar information for February, 1936, is not yet available.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: Is that not 2s. 2½d. per ton profit?

Mr. EDE: asked the Secretary for Mines how many men were employed in the coal mines now owned by the Harton Coal Company at South Shields in 1913, 1920, and 1935?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The figures were 10,196, 12,762 and 4,365, respectively.

Mr. DAVID ADAMS: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of boys between the ages of 14 and 16 employed in the mines of county Durham?

Captain CROOKSHANK: At 14th December, 1935, 3,370 boys under 16 years

of age were employed below ground and 2,411 on the surface at mines in the county of Durham.

Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of pits in commission in the South Wales area and the personnel employed from 1919 to date?

Captain CROOKSHANK: As the reply involves a statistical table, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it with the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The information is as follows:


SOUTH WALES AND MONMOUTHSHIRE.


(Coal Mines Act, 1911.)


Year.
Number of mines at work.
Average number of persons employed.


1919
576
257,613


1920
614
271,516


1921
663
232,215

1922
642
243,303


1923
660
252,909


1924
656
250,371


1925
609
218,053


1926
611
March 217,989


December 156,555


1927
639
194,260


1928
552
168,465


1929
507
178,530


1930
509
172,991


1931
484
158,271


1932
458
145,810


1933
459
143,014


1934
459
139,935


1935
433
133,070

RE-ORGANISATION COMMISSION.

Mr. SEXTON: asked the Secretary for Mines the nature of the work upon which the members of the Coal Re-organisation Commission are now engaged?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The Commission are engaged in carrying out the duty assigned to them by Statute, that is, of promoting and assisting the amalgamation of colliery undertakings. I may add that a voluntary scheme for the partial amalgamation of six large colliery companies in Yorkshire has just been referred by my Department to the Railway and Canal Commission for confirmation. The Re-organisation Commission have been, and still are, assisting in this scheme, as well as proceeding with informal inquiries and discussions with a view to encouraging other voluntary amalgamations.

Mr. PALING: When are steps likely to be taken to give the Commission the extra powers that were indicated?

Captain CROOKSHANK: I have already answered that question.

Lieut. - Colonel ACLAND - TROYTE: Can the Minister say how many amalgamations have been made by the Commissioners, and what each amalgamation has cost?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Oh, no; not without notice.

MINE CONDITIONS (COMPLAINTS).

Mr. SEXTON: asked the Secretary for Mines whether, when letters are received by his Department relating to conditions in mines and signed by persons who complain of such conditions, care is taken to prevent the name of the complainant reaching the management?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Yes, Sir.

Mr. R. J. TAYLOR: asked the Secretary for Mines whether, when unsigned letters are received by his Department complaining of conditions in mines, any action is taken by his inspectors?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Yes, Sir. All complaints of conditions affecting safety or health are investigated by the inspectors.

Mr. KENNEDY: asked the Secretary for Mines whether complaints by miners sent to the Inspector of Mines, George Street, Edinburgh, regarding conditions of labour in Scottish coal mines for inquiry are in all eases dealt with privately and confidentially by the officials concerned?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Yes, Sir.

INSPECTIONS.

Mr. SEXTON: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of inspections of coal mines by His Majesty's inspectors of mines that have been made without notice to the owners of the mines during 1934 and 1935, respectively?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The total number of inspections at mines under the Coal Mines Act was 23,167 in 1934 and 22,845 in 1935. All these inspections were made without notice, except in the comparatively few cases when it was essential

to the purpose of the visit that the inspector should see some particular person or persons.

Mr. WATSON: asked the Secretary for Mines whether the privacy of communications between miners and mines inspectors is always observed; and whether any exceptions to this rule have been brought to his notice?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The answer to the first part of the question is "Yes," and to the second part "No."

Mr. WATSON: If sent the hon. and gallant Gentleman a case, will he consider it?

Captain CROOKSHANK: I certainly will, but I did have one case brought to my notice, and the allegation was completely unfounded. I do not know whether it is the same case, but I shall be glad to look into it.

PRICES.

Mr. SHINWELL: asked the Secretary for Mines the average inland selling prices for coal produced in the Durham coalfield since the termination of the coal dispute, and the average price for the December quarter of 1935?

Captain CROOKSHANK: I regret that particulars of inland selling prices are not available. The average pithead proceeds per ton of all coal disposable commercially in Durham in the December quarter, 1935, were 12s. 7¼d., and in January, 1936, 13s. 2¾d. The figure for February is not yet known.

Mr. SHINWELL: Is it not possible for the hon. and gallant Gentleman's Department to distinguish as between the inland price and the export price?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The question asked was what is the average selling price, and I have replied that those particulars are not available, as the hon. Gentleman ought to know.

Mr. SHINWELL: Do I understand that it is impossible to ascertain what is the actual inland selling price of coal in a particular coal area?

Captain CROOKSHANK: I have explained in my answer that the particulars are not available.

Mr. SHINWELL: asked the Secretary for Mines the average export selling price for coal produced in Durham since the termination of the coal dispute, and the average price for the, December quarter of 1935?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Separate figures for Durham are not available, but the average f.o.b. value per ton of coal exported from the north-east coast ports during the December quarter, 1935, was 13s. 6d., in January, 1936, 13s. 9d., and in February, 1936, 13s. 10d.

Mr. SHINWELL: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the inland price has been substantially increased, whereas the export price remains the same or is even less than before, and that inland consumers are being asked to subsidise our export trade?

Captain CROOKSHANK: All these inferences seem to me to be inaccurate. The reply I have just given shows that the f.o.b. prices have been rising in the last three months.

Mr. SHINWELL: How can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say that the inferences are inaccurate with respect to the Durham coalfield, when he was unable to give an answer to the question I put just now?

EXPORTS (TYNE DOCK).

Mr. EDE: asked the Secretary for Mines (1) the name of the country to which most coal was exported from Tyne dock in each of the years 1913, 1920, and 1935, respectively; and the tonnage exported to such country;
(2) how many tons of coal were exported from Tyne dock in 1913, 1920, and 1935?

Captain CROOKSHANK: I regret that this information is not available.

TRADE AGREEMENTS.

Mr. W. JOSEPH STEWART: asked the Secretary for Mines what is the amount of British coal that has been exported under the trade agreements since 1933 to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, and the Argentine; and how many miners have been placed in employment in this country owing to those agreements having been made?

Captain CROOKSHANK: As the reply involves a number of figures, I will, with

the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

Exports of United Kingdom coal to the countries named amounted to 5,712,827 tons in 1931, 8,272,087 tons in 1933, 9,942,739 tons in 1934, and 9,908,705 tons in 1935. As certain countries were already, in 1932, increasing their imports of coal from the United Kingdom in anticipation of trade agreement negotiations, the year 1931 is regarded as a more suitable basis of comparison. The increase in shipments to the six countries in 1935, as compared with 1931, amounted to 4,195,878 tons. As regards the last part of the question, it is probably sufficient for me to say that 4,195,878 tons represents the working of about 3,500,000 man-shifts.

PIT-STEAD BATHS.

Mr. DAVID ADAMS: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of schemes of pit-head baths provided under the miners' welfare scheme; and in how many districts such provision yet remains to be made?

Captain CROOKSHANIK: The number of completed installations provided wholly or partly out of the miners' welfare fund up to the end of 1935 is 188, and they afford accommodation for 238,634 men and 366 women. With regard to the second part of the question, if the hon. Member means districts under the Mining Industry Act, 1920, the answer is that there are three districts in which there are not yet any pit-head bath schemes.

SAFETY IN MINES.

Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he proposes to take steps to fix minimum dimensions in return airways as an assurance to a good ventilating system and removal of dangers of explosion from gas accumulation?

Captain CROOKSHANK: The Royal Commission on Safety in Coal Mines is now investigating this and other matters concerning ventilation, and, pending their report, I do not propose to amend the existing requirements of the Coal Mines Act,.1911.

Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he has con-


sidered the loss of life on the coal face due to machine mining and the noise therefrom; and what action he proposes to take to reduce this toll of human life?

Captain CROOKSHANK: A general review of the problems has now been commenced by the Royal Commission on Safety in Mines. The specific question of mitigating noise has been taken up with the manufacturers of coal face machinery.

HOURS CONVENTION.

Mr. ROWSON: asked the Secretary for Mines the reasons why he is unable to ratify the Hours in Mines Convention, agreed to in Geneva in 1931?

Captain CROOKSHANK: As has been stated on many previous occasions, His Majesty's Government are prepared to ratify this convention at the same time as the other six countries named in the text of the convention.

Mr. SHINWELL: Has any approach been made to other countries to induce them to append their signatures to the Convention?

Captain CROOKSHANK: If the hon. Member will refer to the reply that I gave him on 9th December last, he will see the answer.

Mr. SHINWELL: Am I to understand from that reply, since my memory fails me as to the answer that the hon. and gallant Gentleman gave, that it is in the negative or in the affirmative?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Perhaps the hon. Member will read it and see.

FIFESHIRE.

Mr. GALLACHER: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of men employed in the Fife pits; the number of miners unemployed in the same area; and an estimate of how many of those unemployed would be absorbed in the Fife pits if the seven-hour day were restored to the miners?

Captain CROOKSHANK: At the end of February, 1936, the number of wage-earners on colliery books in the County of Fife was 21,066. On 24th February, 3,294 persons in the coal mining industry classification were registered as wholly

unemployed at Employment Exchanges in Fife and 97 persons as temporarily stopped. As regards the last part of the question, so many unknown and incalculable factors enter into the matter that I am not prepared to give an estimate.

Mr. GALLAGHER: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman prepared to recommend the restoration of the seven-hour day and so find out how many of the unemployed would be absorbed?

Captain CROOKSHANK: That is quite another question.

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Will my hon. and gallant Friend consider the experiment that was carried out some years ago, and which had to be abandoned?

Mr. KENNEDY: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of accidents to boys under 16 years of age employed in or about the coal mines in Fife during 1935?

Captain CROOKSHANK: In 1935, 95 boys under 16 years of age were injured and disabled for more than three days by accidents at coal mines in Fife-shire. No boys under 16 years of age were killed.

LINLITHGOWSHIRE.

Mr. MATHERS: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of coal miners under and over 16 years of age, respectively, employed in the county of Linlithgow during each of the last three years to the latest date for which particulars are available?

Captain CROOKSHANK: In December, 1933, 1934 and 1935, the numbers of persons under 16 years of age employed at coal mines in the county of Linlithgow were 183, 240 and 315, respectively. The corresponding figures for persons 16 years of age and over were 5,279, 5,479 and 5,794.

Viscountess ASTOR: As there are so many unemployed among the miners, would it not be a good idea to prohibit the employment of children under 16?

Mr. MATHERS: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he will state the number of fatal and non-fatal accidents occurring to coal miners in the county of


Linlithgow for each of the last three years to the latest date for which particulars are available; and whether he will state how many of these accidents were to miners over and under 16 years of age, respectively?

Number of Persons Killed and Injured (disabled for more than three days) at Coal Mines in the County of Linlithgow during the years 1933, 1934 and 1935.


Year.
Number of Persons Killed.
Number of Persons Injured.


Under 16 years of age.
16 years and over.
Under 16 years of age.
16 years and over.





1933
…
…
…
—
5
11
899


1934
…
…
…
—
8
28
935


1935
…
…
…
1
8
30
1,119

OIL EXTRACTION (BERGIUS PROCESS).

Mr. WHITELEY: asked the Lord President of the Council whether the experiment of extracting oil from coal by the Bergius process is still being proceeded with at the Greenwich research station; and what progress is being made?

The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): Yes, Sir. Processes for the production of oil from coal by hydrogenation are constantly under investigation at the Fuel Research Station, East Greenwich. Many modifications in technique have been made to the process originally formulated by Dr. Bergius. The progress of the work of the station is described in the annual reports of the Fuel Research Board, and I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the latest of these.

Mr. WHITELEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this process is actually in use in any part of the country to-day?

Mr. MacDONALD: Oh, yes, it is the basis of the biggest undertakings that are going on.

Oral Answers to Questions — PETROLEUM (PRODUCTION) ACT, 1934.

Mr. R. J. TAYLOR: asked the Secretary for Mines how many licences have been issued to prospectors of natural oil?

Captain CROOKSHANK: Thirty-nine oil prospecting licences have been issued under the Petroleum (Production) Act, 1934.

Captain CROOKSHANK: As the reply involves a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate them with the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The information is as follows:

Mr. SHINWELL: Have any of these licences been issued to companies of a limited liability character, and, in that event, has the general public been safeguarded against any unnecessary speculation?

Captain CROOKSHANK: That in-formation can be supplied after due notice has been given.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR PROFITS.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider introducing legislation which will permit, in the event of war, the immediate conscription of wealth, with a view to ensuring that no one shall benefit financially by the nation's necessities?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): No, Sir.

Mr. MANDER: In view of the fact that at the end of the last War certain individuals were £4,000,000,000 better off as a result of it, is it not worth considering whether this might not be prevented in future?

The PRIME MINISTER: It is difficult to deal with a question like this by question and answer. I can assure the hon. Member that to attain the object which he has in mind, or which I assume he has in mind, I am quite as keen as he can be. I have no doubt if war broke out that the Government, or whatever Government were in power, guided by the light of the experience of the last War, would take whatever steps they thought


proper to prevent, throughout the whole community, profiteering as in the last War. Whether the means which he suggests here would give effect to that I do not know. I do not believe, myself, that this is practicable, and when he asked me whether I am going to legislate in this direction, for that reason, I said "No."

Mr. EVERARD: Does my right hon. Friend not think that members of the Council of the League of Nations Union would be better advised to put questions on matters affecting the peace of the world rather than war?

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE.

Mr. TREE: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the whole question of our defences being under review, he will consider setting up a committee to examine the position of our food supplies, with a view to ascertaining what proportion of those supplies should be homegrown, and to inquire into the available facilities for the storage of commodities in this country?

The PRIME MINISTER: These matters are constantly under review by His Majesty's Ministers, and I do not think it desirable to appoint a committee such as my hon. Friend suggests.

Mr. TREE: In view of the fact that such a very high percentage, not only of our foodstuffs, but also of our feeding stuffs, is imported, does not the Prime Minister think that this is a question of the greatest urgency, particularly in view of the fact that certain trade agreements will shortly be coming up for review?

The PRIME MINISTER: That is another matter, and it is an extremely difficult one, in view of the considerations which have to be borne in mind in connection with our export trade. It is to maintain a balance that we are constantly striving. It is an extraordinarily difficult subject, and we have it under constant review.

Mr. BOOTHBY: Is there any special committee of the Cabinet, or other committee, which is charged at the present moment with going into the question of the food supplies of this country as a whole?

The PRIME MINISTER: If my hon. Friend will be good enough to put down a question, I will give him exact information, but in the meat; time I can assure him that there is not a subject he could think of on which there is not a committee sitting.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Prime Minister whether he h is come to any decision with regard to the appointment of a Minister to take charge of supplies for the three Defence Services?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am sorry that here again I have to say "No, Sir."

Mr. MANDER: Do I understand, from the right hon. Gentleman's answer, that the matter is still under the serious consideration of His Majesty's Government?

The PRIME MINISTER: Of course, it is under consideration, but I do not think, myself, that in the very near future an answer can be given, because the whole problem of supply lies before us, and it is being examined now. it is difficult to say, until we see what its magnitude is, whether it will be necessary to take these steps.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say, if we go on at the present rate, how many Ministers there will be on the Front Bench by the end of this Session?

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

DEATH DUTIES.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the drain on the revenue, amounting to over £22,000,000 per annum, caused by the annual inroads into the national capital made by Death Duties; and whether, with a view to avoiding this annual loss of revenue, he will consider allowing taxpayers to make provision during their lifetime towards the estate duties payable on their death without having payments of tie kind aggregated with the rest of their estate, thereby not only increasing the duty payable but often placing the whsle estate in an increased category of duty?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid I can hold out no hope of any relief from the Death Duties on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the point of the question is, not relief from Death Duties, but saving the national income and avoiding the break-up of estates? Surely it is worth while asking his experts to consider whether both these objects cannot be attained?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have made very full investigations into the matter.

TAX AVOIDANCE.

Mr. MABANE: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the method of tax avoidance by the registration of companies outside the United Kingdom is on the increase; and, if so, will he, in preparing his Budget, consider adopting measures to stop the use of this method?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My hon. Friend will not expect me to make any exception to the usual rule that I cannot anticipate my Budget statement.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY (BRITISH LOANS).

Mr. R. C. MORRISON: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that conversations are taking place in London between British and German bankers regarding a proposal for a large loan to help Germany out of her financial difficulties; and, in view of the fact that these difficulties are largely due to armaments expenditure, whether he will give an assurance that he will not give his consent to any proposal to lend further British money to Germany?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not aware of any such conversations as the hon. Member alludes to. As regards the second part of the question, I would refer him to the reply given to the hon. Member for the Stoke Division (Mr. E. Smith) yesterday.

Mr. MORRISON: Has not the right hon. Gentleman seen the definite statements which have been made in certain responsible financial journals within the last few days with regard to these conversations; and will he answer the last part of the question, which his colleague did not answer yesterday?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The last part of the question appears to be of hypothetical character.

Mr. PETHERICK: Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that the policy of His Majesty's Government continues to be the discouragement of foreign loans, which policy has been such a success during the last 4½ years?

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Mr. SORENSEN: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is prepared to reconsider the anomaly in the Old Age Pensions Act of calculating part of the income of claimants as being 5 per cent. of the capital value of investments, whereas in fact it is generally substantially less; and whether he is aware of the injustice that this frequently imposes?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. W. S. Morrison): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 12th December, 1935, to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Brigadier-General Makins).

Oral Answers to Questions — CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS.

Mr. STEPHEN: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1) what would be the calculated cost of extending in Scotland the widows' contributory pension scheme to spinsters at the age of 55 or upwards; and whether he will consider taking steps to make pension provisions for such people, in view of their difficulties in finding employment;
(2) what would be the estimated cost of extending in England and Wales the widows' contributory pension scheme to spinsters at the age of 55 and upwards; and whether he will consider taking steps to make pension provision for such people in view of their difficulties in finding employment?

Mr. W. S. MORRISON: I estimate that the cost of granting contributory old age pensions at 55, instead of at the present age of 65, to unmarried insured women would be an additional £4,500,000 a year (namely, £4,000,000 a year in England and Wales and £500,000 a year in Scotland), rising in 10 years' time to £5,740,000 a year (namely, £5,100,000 a year in England and Wales and £640,000 a year in Scotland). As regards


the last part of each question, similar proposals have been made in the past, and it has not been found practicable to adopt them.

Mr. LEACH: Do I understand that the figures given in the answer are on a contributory basis? Has the income been taken into account?

Mr. MORRISON: Yes, Sir, that is so.

Mr. MATHERS: Could not the experiment be tried of introducing this extension in Scotland?

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTHERN RHODESIA (PROPOSED LEGISLATION).

Mr. THURTLE: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can give any information as to the legislation proposed by the Government of Southern Rhodesia with a view to suppressing seditious tracts and publications and to prohibit the assembling together of natives for religious purposes unless they belong to some denomination recognised by the Government?

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): I presume that the hon. Member refers to two Southern Rhodesia Bills, of which I have received copies. One of these is entitled:
A Bill to suppress seditious utterances, newspapers, books, pictures and gramophone records";
and the other:
A Bill to provide for the control of fanatical and ostensibly religious movements among natives by the issue of certificates to native preachers and teachers.
I am informed that the main object of the former Bill is to prevent the dissemination of publications calculated to stir up racial strife. The latter Bill prohibits any native from holding religious services and giving religious instruction unless he has been granted a certificate of authorisation by the head of his mission, if he belongs to a recognised religious denomination, or, if he does not belong to such a denomination, by the Chief Native Commissioner.

Mr. THURTLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter and see if it is not undesirable, from the point of view of liberty, that the second Bill should be proceeded with? Has he

received any protest from the Liberation Society?

Mr. MacDONALD: I am not aware of any protest from the Liberation Society. On the first question, I am to answer another hon. Member a little later on.

Mr. PALING: If any industrial trouble should arise—

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise on this question.

Mr. PALING: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether the Southern Rhodesia Native Preachers Bill has been submitted to him in draft form; and whether he has any observations to make about the Bill?

Mr. MacDONALD: This Bill was referred in draft form to my predecessor, who replied that he had no observations to offer on it. I may say that the Bill is based upon a similar provision in the Native Schools Ordinance of Northern Rhodesia.

Mr. PALING: Have the natives any right to approach the right hon. Gentleman before the Bills are submitted to the House of Representatives in Southern Rhodesia?

Mr. MacDONALD: I am ready to listen to any representations made to me through the proper channels.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: Does not this come within the category of reserved legislation, and will it not have to come back for approval if it passes the Southern Rhodesian Legislature?

Mr. MacDONALD: It comes within the category of reserved legislation. We had better wait and see what happens in the Rhodesian Parliament before considering the matter again.

Mr. DAVIDSON: Are there any means whereby the natives can make representations to the Secretary of State?

Mr. MacDONALD: It is always open to the Governor to send representations on to me.

Mr. PALING: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (1) whether any enactments of the Southern Rhodesia Parliament contain provision for compulsory vaccination and registration of the finger prints of natives:


(2) whether the principle of the pass system, as contained in the Southern Rhodesia Native Registration Bill, is embodied in any enactment passed by the Southern Rhodesia Parliament?

Mr. MacDONALD: Provision for compulsory vaccination and for registration of finger prints in the case of natives seeking employment in certain townships is to be found in Southern Rhodesia Ordinance No, 5 of 1918. The requirement, which is contained in the Southern Rhodesia Natives Registration Bill, that natives visiting, or seeking employment in, towns must obtain passes, is taken from Southern Rhodesia Ordinance No. 16 of 1901.

Mr. PALING: Is it not a fact that the Bill enlarges tremendously the scope of registration of finger prints and compulsory vaccination and the pass system, and is it not a hardship on the natives that they have to apply every seven or 14 days and waste a day every time they apply?

Mr. MacDONALD: As I said previously, the present legislation in prin-

Sheep Scab.


Outbreaks in North Wales.


Year.
Month.
Anglesey.
Caernarvon.
Denbigh.
Flint.
Merioneth.
Montgomery.


1935
…
November
…
2
9
9
—
1
4




December
…
—
5
7
1
6
3


1936
…
January
…
2
—
1
4
1
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February
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Oral Answers to Questions — CANADA (MIGRATION).

Mr. AMMON: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether His Majesty's Government have received an invitation from the Government of Canada to send a delegation to Canada to inquire into some aspects of the problems of migration?

Mr. M. MacDONALD: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — SEA FISH COMMISSION (REPORT).

Mr. LOFTUS: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that Lowestoft trawlers are being now laid up, with consequent unemployment of crews, owing to the low prices of the fish landed, due to the heavy imports

ciple merely re-enacts legislation which has been in existence and in practice for many years.

Mr. PALING: Is it not a fact that the natives object that this is tremendously enlarging the scope?

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

SHEEP SCAB (NORTH WALES).

Mr. HAYDN JONES: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many cases of sheep scab have been reported in each of the six North Wales counties, giving separate returns for the months of November, December, January, and February last?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Ramsbotham): As the answer involves a tabular statement I am, with the hon. Member's permission, circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Following is the answer:

of Danish fish under the quota; and whether he will take steps to defer consideration of any new fish quota arrangements under the proposed new Anglo-German trade agreement until after publication of the second report of the Sea Fish Commission?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: My right hon. Friend is aware of the fact that a number of trawlers at Lowestoft have recently been laid up, and this, he understands, is due to a number of causes. My hon. Friend can be assured that in the consideration of any quota arrangements due regard will be paid to the second report of the Sea Fish Commission.

Mr. LOFTUS: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the report of the Sea


Fish Commission has been completed and when publication may be expected?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: The report is being presented to Parliament to-day. Copies will be available to Members at the Vote Office to-morrow afternoon and publication will follow immediately. My right hon. Friend is glad to have this opportunity of expressing the gratitude of himself and my right hon. Friends, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to the Sea Fish Commission for the thoroughness with which they have examined the case of the White Fish Industry.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

Mr. SILVERMAN: asked the Minister of Pensions what was the total number of British casualties, killed and wounded, among the forces of the Crown during the years 1914 to 1918; and in how many of such cases are pensions being paid?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. R. S. Hudson): The total number of casualties by death or wound that occurred in the course of the Great War was, I am informed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, 2,437,964. Altogether about 2,419,000 awards of pecuniary compensation have been made for death or disablement by service in the Great War. Pensions and allowances are in payment in respect of approximately 820,000 disabled and deceased officers and men at the present time.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

LAND SETTLEMENT SCHEMES.

Mr. STOREY: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider making men in receipt of public assistance eligible for land settlement schemes in the same way as those in receipt of unemployment assistance?

Mr. E. BROWN: Yes, Sir. Arrangements in the sense desired by my hon. Friend have been made.

TRANSFERENCE.

Mr. STOREY: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider making

available to men in receipt of public assistance the same facilities which exist for men in receipt of unemployment assistance to proceed to areas where the prospects of employment are good, with special allowances during the period they are away from home, and also to remove their households if they obtain permanent employment?

Mr. E. BROWN: The point to which my hon. Friend calls attention was carefully considered when these facilities (which are of an experimental nature) were introduced, but as he will appreciate there are particular difficulties in transferring men in receipt of public assistance except to an actual job. When they obtain permanent employment on transfer they are in general, eligible for assistance towards the removal of dependants and household effects on the same conditions as persons in receipt of unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance.

SPECIAL AREAS.

Mr. BATEY: asked the Minister of Labour the amounts separately of public money paid by the Commissioner of the distressed areas to the Boy Scouts Association, the Girl Guides Association, the Church Lads Brigade, the Girls Life Brigade, the Boys Brigade, and the Young Women's Christian Association?

Mr. E. BROWN: The National Council of Social Service have made the following grants out of funds provided by the Commissioner for Special Areas (England and Wales):



£


Boy Scouts Association
3,425


Girl Guides Association
3,020


Church Lads Brigade
1,520


Girls Life Brigade
980


Boys Brigade
3,231


Young Women's Christian Association
1,743

Mr. BATEY: Are these grants the Government policy for dealing with unemployment in the distressed areas?

Mr. BROWN: These are grants for most admirable work performed.

Mr. BATEY: Will these grants solve the unemployed problem in the distressed areas?

Viscountess ASTOR: Will not these grants help the people to bear their burdens?

SPENNYMOOR.

Mr. BATEY: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the index figure of unemployment shows for December, 1934, 28.4 per cent., and for February, 1936, 33.9 per cent. at the Spennymoor Employment Exchange; and what steps the Government propose to take to remedy this increasing unemployment?

Mr. E. BROWN: The figures selected by the hon. Member do not give an accurate representation of the trend of unemployment in this area. The average index figure of unemployment for 1932 was 43.3 and that for 1935 was 32.9.

Mr. BATEY: Are we to understand that the figures quoted in the question are not correct?

Mr. BROWN: I have not said that they are incorrect, but that they do not give an accurate representation.

Mr. BATEY: Are not the figures showing that the unemployment index figure at Spennymoor Employment Exchange has increased by 6 per cent. since December, 1934, correct?

Mr. BROWN: There are other things which should be taken into account.

ASSISTANCE (REGULATIONS).

Mr. ALBERY: asked the Minister of Labour whether he can now give any information concerning inquiries made in accordance with the Government's undertaking to investigate exceptional cases of hardship under the present means test, including those affecting family life?

Mr. E. BROWN: I assume that my hon. Friend has in mind the inquiries necessary for framing revised unemployment assistance regulations. My hon. Friend will not expect me to make any announcement in advance of the draft regulations themselves.

Mr. SHINWELL: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to issue the draft regulations?

Mr. BROWN: Very soon.

Mr. SHINWELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman, in view of the importance of this matter, of the promise embodied in the Gracious Speech and the promises made by several right hon. Gentlemen who are his colleagues, give the approximate date for the issues of these regulations?

Mr. BROWN: The approximate time has been given on many occasions—the Spring—and that still holds good.

Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: Is it not a fact that the Minister and the Committee are at variance, and that that is the reason why we cannot get a definite answer?

Mr. EDE: Will it be before Easter?

Mr. BROWN: I cannot say.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

LEVEL CROSSING (CRAWLEY).

Captain STRICKLAND: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the Southern Railway Company is denying access to a road situated on the outskirts of the town of Crawley by closing the level crossing gates throughout the night; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Captain Austin Hudson): My right hon. Friend is aware that between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. it is necessary to ring the bell to call the gateman to open the gates near Crawley on the Horsham Road (A. 278), but he has no power to require the railway company to alter their arrangements at this crossing. He has, however, agreed to make a grant towards the cost of a bypass and new bridge over the railway close to this point, work on which is to commence on 1st April.

Captain STRICKLAND: Can my hon. and gallant Friend say whether this is a public highway or whether it belongs to the railway company, and, if so, by what right the railway company can close it?

Captain HUDSON: It is a public highway, but I should like to have notice of the second part of my hon. and gallant Friend's supplementary question.

Brigadier-General CLIFTON-BROWN: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that another level crossing is within 100 yards in the town?

FORTH ROAD BRIDGE.

Mr. KENNEDY: asked the Minister of Transport whether he has recently received any communication from the Forth Road Bridge Promotion Committee; if he is aware of the dissatisfaction in Eastern Scotland regarding the delay in the provision of this bridge for the improvement


of road facilities and industrial development; and what are the prospects of this approved Scottish scheme receiving treatment equivalent to the financial support given to similar undertakings in England and Wales?

Captain HUDSON: I would refer the right hon. Member to the replies which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) on 11th March, of which I am sending him a copy.

Oral Answers to Questions — SUGAR INDUSTRY (REORGANISA TION) BILL.

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee D.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of Proceedings to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 80.]

Oral Answers to Questions — SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

SCOTTISH STANDING COMMITTEE.

Sir Henry Cautley reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills (added in respect of the Education (Scotland) Bill): Captain Sir Ernest Bennett; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Emmott.

Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the enactments relating to solicitors, and for purposes connected therewith." [Solicitors Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the abandonment of the tramways and light railways in the county borough of Swansea; to confer further powers on the Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company; to ratify the Assignment to the South Wales Transport Company Limited of a Lease of the Oystermouth railway or tramroad and the works of the Mumbles Railway and Pier Company; and for other purposes."

[Swansea and District Transport Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the Cornwall Electric Power Company and for other purposes." [Cornwall Electric Power Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled. "An Act to alter the incidence of rating for certain purposes in the urban district of Bedwellty; to confer further powers on the urban district council of Bedwellty for and in connection with their electricity undertaking and the improvement good government and finances of their district; and for other purposes." [Bedwellty Urban District Council Bill (Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the urban district council of Bognor Regis in regard to their water undertaking and to make further and better provision for the improvement health local government and finance of their district; and for other purposes." [Bognor Regis Urban District Council Bill [lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Traction Company to run trolley vehicles on an additional route; to extend the Company's powers of running public service vehicles; to provide for the subdivision of the shares in the capital of the Company; and for other purposes." [Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Traction Bill [Lords.]

And also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of the city and county of Kingston upon Hull to provide and work trolley vehicle services; and for other purposes." [Kingston upon Hull Corporation Bill [Lords.]

Swansea and District Transport Bill [Lords],
Cornwall Electric Power Bill [Lords],
Bedwellty Urban District Council Bill [Lords],
Bognor Regis Urban District Council Bill [Lords],
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Traction Bill [Lords],
Kingston upon Hull Corporation Bill [Lords],

Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now react a Second time."

PALESTINE.

3.47 p.m.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: In selecting the subject for Debate on the Motion for the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, I have on this occasion taken a question which is exercising Members in all parts of the House, which is of considerable urgency, and which is of great importance to the future of the Empire. It is the question of the proposal of His Majesty's Government to grant the Constitution to the Mandated Territory of Palestine by Orders in Council. At the present, time humanity is faced by two crises. One of these we discuss daily—the danger from dictators—and the other, which is allied thereto, is the awful fate of the Jews. Humanity and civilisation rebel as bombs continue to be dropped upon Abyssinians, and the Jews continue to be starved out and robbed and none will give them shelter. We are faced with the problem of the outcasting of the whole race. The Jewish race at the present time are acclimatising themselves to being classed as outcasts, and this must not go on without humanity and civilisation having something to say in the matter. As in the days of old the lepers used to move about crying "Unclean, unclean," and ringing a bell, so that the rest of mankind could avoid their presence, so now we are driving 15,000,000 civilised people into exactly the same position as those lepers. As they pass through the streets of Europe to-day mankind draws away from the hem of their raiment so as not to be contaminated.
I have spoken of our present-day civilisation having gone back to the fourteenth century. It has gone back much further than that. It starts with the child of six. When it first leaves its mother's house and goes out into the streets of Europe to-day it finds that the Jews are the enemies of the world. The birthright of childhood, a universal birthright, whether in Africa, Asia or Europe,

has come to an end. The child falls down; there is no one to pick it up. Instead, it is kicked. This starts at six years of age, and for the rest of its unfortunate life the same deadly lesson is ground into it at every turn: it is the enemy of the human race, an outlaw who may be hit and robbed, deprived of its rights to race and home, driven out of its country—you are a Jew, and you have no case.
This is creating a problem which we have never had to face before, but we must face it now, not for the sake of the Jews, but for the sake of our own self-respect as Christian men and women. Some people think that this problem is only a question of 500,000 German Jews. We have seen these people, coming very near to ourselves in culture and civilisation; German Jews, rich, prosperous and powerful, smashed. But these 500,000 German Jews, with the limelight upon them to-day held in place by Julius Streicher, are only a small part of the problem of the Jewish people. There are 500,000 Jews in Germany. They are getting less, but there are 5,000,000 in Poland. In Austria, in the Baltic States, in Rumania and in Greece—in all these lands, formerly civilised, you see this awful fate approaching the Jewish population. We used to complain of the Communist propaganda of Russian ideas and dominion, but now we have the Nazi propaganda throughout the whole world, thriving, existing and devoting its entire activities to stirring up in smaller and lesser-bred nations a policy of hatred for these unfortunate Jews—a policy contrary to all that we have stood for in the past. The Jews are being driven out of Poland to-day. Anyone who knows the conditions in Poland will admit at once that they are ten times worse than they are in Germany. The Jews in Poland are poorer and more easily starved. There is not a country in Europe to-day, except Estonia and the Scandinavian countries, which does not make it evident that sooner or later they are going to get rid of these people, that the chance of a Jew making an honest living will come to an end; they will have to go.
That has happened before to the Jews, and to other people. The Puritans were driven out of this country in much the same manner, but before there has always been somewhere for them to go. Now, if


you look round the world, you find nowhere for these unfortunate people to go. No land is free for them; no land where they live at present is allowed to be any longer their home. The right hon. Member and I, and many other hon. Members in this House, did all that we could to save the Armenians, and later on the Assyrians, from similar persecution. We failed, but I think it is to our honour at least that we tried, and even now by spending the money of the British taxpayer we are doing something to fulfil the duties of humanity towards the Assyrians. But this is a ten times larger problem. They cannot even come to this country or go to the United States. I would ask my right hon. Friend to observe that immigrants are not wholly vicious even from an economic point of view. Every immigrant to this country or to Palestine makes work for the people in the country. He has to be fed and clothed, and transported. The immigrant should not be looked upon solely as a man who is stealing a job from an honest Englishman but as a man who is providing work for that honest Englishman. At the present time it may not be possible to allow any foreigner to come into England, but I can imagine what Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright would have said if they had been faced with an England which closed its doors to the oppressed.
We cannot do much here now, but at least we rule Palestine, and there is a chance, almost the only hope for the Jewish people. I have pointed out to the House how this policy has been spread through Europe by the Nazi regime, but it has gone beyond Europe. The same propaganda has been going on in other countries of the world. You find exactly the same agitation in Iraq, the same desire to be clear of the unclean thing. You find it arousing exactly the same pogroms and riots in Algiers and in Constantinople as in the streets of Warsaw, and you find it also in Palestine. You find the same feeling that Arab unity and hope for the future consist in adopting the ideas of Nazi Germany and closing that door also as an escape. The possibilities in Palestine have only been recently appreciated, but they are appreciated by the whole of the Jewish race. The size of a country does not necessarily limit the population of the country. Even if the land is bad land, a small country can support a very large population. We

have an example in the case of Belgium, where you have an intensive cultivation carrying the largest population to the square acre in the world.
It all depends upon the application of capital to intensive cultivation. You can turn an asphalted court in the suburbs of Paris, by the use of hot water pipes and made, manured, ground, into land capable of producing many kilos of vegetables per acre. In the same way in Palestine an enormous expansion of Jewish people acquiring land, clearing it of stones and applying to it ail the latest resources of science and human energy, has enabled that land to support a far denser population than any comparable land in the world. As yet only one-tenth of the land of Palestine is in Jewish hands. Nine-tenths of it, although the Arab population is only two to one, is still in Arab hands. The application of capital to intensive cultivation is capable of expansion so that Palestine itself, in spite of the natural poverty of the place, could carry per acre at least twice the population that it carries to-day. It all depends upon capital still coming in. It is not an economic basis but "Needs must where the Devil drives." If the Jew is to live anywhere in peace he has to buy his foothold on the land by paying an enormous sum for it, and then paying an even larger sum in order to make that land productive.
There is one of the possibilities which the starving Jews in Poland see. The other possibility is the wide land of Transjordan, twice the size of Palestine and just across the border, where the Arabs are not anxious to keep out the Jews but are quite naturally anxious to have them in, in order that they may secure the advantage of the high prices which the Jews are willing to pay for land where they may live. Success has followed this magnificent experiment, beyond what any of us dreamed of, but all is jeopardised if we hand over the control of that country to the people who do not want Jews there at all. If you suddenly say, "Oh, let us be saved from the responsibility for all these troubles in Palestine," we may get an easy road, but it will be a disgraceful policy for it will be to surrender a responsibility which we have so far carried on well and it will put an end for ever to this last hope of the Jewish people. That is why you have in this House to-day an almost


unanimous opinion among Members who have gone into the question, that whatever happens we must not surrender, must not clear out of Palestine, but must continue to carry the mixed burden of Arab and Jew which we have so far carried well, with mixed results but good results on the whole during the last 16 years.
I turn for one moment to the special interest that the Labour party has in this question. The Labour party would be the last body in this House to urge the colonisation of Palestine by Jews if that colonisation would result in the same destruction of the native races as followed the colonisation of Mexico and Peru by the Spaniards, or of North America by the British, or of the Congo by the Belgian Government. If it meant a repetition of the exploitation of the aboriginal inhabitants of that place, if it meant even a deterioration of their status, then you would have on these benches a very different speech and a very different attitude from what you have to-day. We do not want to repeat those injustices of the past. We are confident, both from the experience of the last 16 years and from our knowledge of what the British Government can do, that so far from injuring the Arabs the access of British rule has been the salvation of the Arab fellaheen of Palestine. You have only to compare the condition of the fellaheen to-day with the condition of the peasant in Egypt or Syria. I admit that we have not made a large advance, but at least we have shown that by the use of civilisation we can help natives instead of destroying them. Compare the wages of Arab unskilled labour in Haifa or Jaffa with wages in Alexandria or Cairo or in the Lebanon and Damascus. There you can see and measure the 100 per cent. rise in wages that has taken place in 15 years. Compare it with the stagnancy and poverty which only those who know the East can appreciate or understand.
We know that in backing the present form of administration in Palestine, so far as the Arab rank and file are concerned, we are doing the right thing. What is meant by this perpetual thought of the injustices to Arabs, from which they are suffering now and from which this new constitution is to save them? What is the injustice to the Arab? Take, first, the case of the Bedouin tribes in

Palestine, the wandering tribes who live in tents, now here and now there, with no cultivation, living on flocks and herds. They have been accustomed for the last 3,000 years, since the time of Abraham, to wander to and fro on these lands, their chief weapon the goat to destroy all cultivation. There is no doubt that our occupation of Palestine and the spread of civilisation in recent years have resulted in the gradual driving back of the nomad races and the gradual advance of the plough and of more intensive cultivation. There is no doubt that every change in cultivation or in civilisation does injure some people, and these wandering Bedouin have suffered and must suffer as civilisation advances and as their tenure of land changes from a roving tenure over vast areas to a fixed tenure of fixed spots. By all means let the British Government take such precautions as are necessary to compensate these people for the loss of their normal form of occupation. Let us help them to get land, to make the best of the new form of intensive cultivation, but do not say, "No. this has been the work for 3,000 years and this shall continue; the land shall not be better used."
Take the charge that is brought against the British Government of injustice to the Arabs. You must distinguish between the two classes of Arabs. There are the rich and the poor in Palestine as elsewhere. The rich under Turkish rule and under other rule up to now have dominated the very mixed population of Palestine. Too often when justice to the Arabs is considered we are considering only the well-to-do Arabs, the landowners, the merchants and the intelligentsia of Palestine. But if you are going to protect these people you are going to protect them not against the Jews but against their own weaker, poorer Arab fellow-citizens. Let me give one illustration to prove my point. Quite recently, but before the present Colonial Secretary took office, there was an Ordinance passed whereby the number of new doctors in Palestine was limited to a quota. A refugee coming from Germany with a good education, a skilled consulting surgeon, could previously take up a job in Palestine and make a living. Now that has been curtailed, not because the doctors there wish it to be curtailed, but because a certain number of Arab doctors said they could not have this intense competition from European doctors. It is the


normal trade union feeling. The support of that doctrine on the ground that it was in the interests of the Arabs is what I complain of.
There you have an enormous and extremely poor Arab population, better off than they were but still Oriental, without a midwife in the villages, and without a doctor. I know one Arab village of about 1,500 Arabs where there is now one lady doctor. She is the only Jew in the village, and in times of trouble she is probably protected by her friends and neighbours from the people outside. But the villages in Palestine who have not a resident doctor at all, and the villages without midwives and chemists, must be considerable in number. Surely in the interest of the Arab population you want to have the best doctoring, the best chance of bringing a child to birth successfully and the best opportunity of getting nursing attendance in every direction. This particular piece of legislation may be in the interests of some Arabs, a handful of doctors there now, but it cannot be in the interests of the common Arab people.
Take this restriction on immigration. In every other country in the world when it is a question of immigrating working men, the trade unions and Labour party have been against it. I do not blame them. But in Palestine you have your trade union organisations and your Labour party begging for more working men to come in and compete with them. In spite of their vested interest in their high wages, in keeping these people out, the Jews are prevented from coining in, or at least prevented from coming in in such numbers as the Labour party and trade unions there ask. While that check on immigration continues, the interests of the Arab landowners and cultivators and the orange growers are not forgotten. While Jewish immigration is being checked, Arabs are coming over the frontier from Transjordan, coming into the labour market for a few months while the oranges have to be picked. Hon. Members in this House could stand on the bridge over the Jordan and watch these people coming in from Transjordan to do that work. But the Jews can go nowhere. That is done in order to provide cheap labour for some of the Arabs. Whether the injustice is to the Jews or to the owners of the orange plantations, I will leave to the House to judge. I

do not think I need labour the point that the problem before us of favouring Arabs or favouring Jews is not a simple one of favouring one of two nations, but is a matter of favouring one class or another class.
I will pass from that to a third illustration. The land legislation proposed for Palestine bears all the marks of previous legislation; it is good for the Arab upper class and bad for the Arab lower class; it is disastrous for the Jews who want land. It is extraordinary how little is known here or even in Palestine as to the method by which land is held in Palestine at the present time. There are a vast number of different types, and there are many names for different forms of cultivation. At the one end of the scale there is the absentee landlord living in Damascus, and at the other end of the scale there is the almost communistic form of village community holding. During the last 15 years we have tried to establish registration of title in Palestine. The whole of the land has been surveyed and now a portion of it—I do not know whether it is a third or a half—has registered titles, so that by turning over the pages of a register one may know who owns certain land, whether it is subject to mortgage, and what is its class for cultivation purposes. The land is divided into 15 different categories. With this welter of different tenures, differing in various parts of Palestine, differing according to whether it has been surveyed or not, without being certain as to how much is landlord-owned, how much is under small ownership or how much is under foreign ownership, with this almost complete uncertainty one has to introduce legislation.
I am very loath to take information either from a Jew or from an Arab on the question of land tenure and land cultivation in Palestine; but I have had a conversation with an Englishman who has lived for a long time in that country and who knows it well. He told me that the condition of the fellaheen in Palestine is not so rosy as it has been painted, that the villages are owned by these landowners, that the tenant's right is worth nothing at all, that nearly all these villagers are indebted to the landlords, that the cultivation is on the mediaeval system according to which the tenant takes one-half or two-thirds of the produce and the landlord the


other third or half, that the whole class is indebted to the landowners, that the Government comes along when seasons are bad and give the landlords the seeds for the next year's crop, so that at the end of that time the landlord holds the unfortunate cultivators more in his grip than ever. Just as in India the peasant cultivator is indebted to an absentee money-lender, so are these people in Palestine indebted to the landowners. It is the only country in the world where the Jews do not become the moneylenders, because that business is absorbed entirely by the landowners.
Now there is proposed this law which says that no cultivator shall part with the last five acres, or whatever it may be, that he shall not be expelled from his land and that he shall not be able to sell it. In Egypt such legislation has existed for a long time. It was, I believe, introduced by Lord Kitchener, and the object was to save the fellaheen of Egypt from the money-lenders. It was said that the owner and cultivator must not sell their land, but it was not realised that in depriving them of the right to sell their land, the land became a white elephant. The landlord in Egypt was allowed to die out.
This proposed law says that if a man sells his land it shall ipso facto become the property of the State. That will not help the small cultivator. It will help the big landlord who will now be able to obtain a high price, because there will be less land available for sale. What does it mean in fact? An Arab cultivator having a small plot within 15 or 20 miles of one of the big industrial towns, such as Haifa or Jaffa, will have the opportunity of carrying on a little business in town. He will be able to carry on that business without selling his piece of land, and his wife and family will have to continue living on the land in order to show occupation. The ground will hardly be scratched, the property will deteriorate, but the man will be prevented from selling the land and anybody else will be prevented from using it. Already the price of land has gone up to such a figure in Palestine that it is two or three times as expensive as it is in this country. Everything which tends still further to restrict the amount of land available for purchase

in Palestine still further sends up the price of what little and there is on the market. All that is proposed, far from helping cultivation or the cultivator, will tend to stereotype cultivation in its present form and in its present mediaeval conditions and will prevent civilisation from developing and the land from becoming productive and useful to all men.
All these proposed laws—laws such as the immigration law, which places upon the Jewish immigrant the onus of proving that he has a right to live in Palestine, the onus of proving himself innocent, instead of as everywhere else in the British Empire placing upon the authorities the onus of proving a man guilty—will be in the hands of the Arab Legislative Council. That will be the case because the Jews have made it clear that they will not tike any part in the Council. But even if they did, the Legislative Council has a statutory Arab majority. The Moslem Arabs have 11 seats and the Christian Arabs have three—I may say that the Christian Arabs are far more anti-Semitic than the Mohammedan Arabs—making in all 14 Arabs to seven Jews.

Earl WINTERTON: The Christians are not necessarily Arabs. The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in supposing that to be the case.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I am not in the least mistaken. The vast majority of the Christians in Palestine are Arabs. As the Noble Lord must know, the whole population is Christian Arab, and what small number of other European Christians there is must be swamped in the vast population of native-born Christians. Moreover, it will be observed that the election is not limited by any educational or property test, bet that all males over 25 vote. Consequently, far from being a moderating element, the Christian element is very much the reverse. But the exact number does not matter as long as there is a majority which no general election can change, a majority forming the Government which no mismanagement by that Government can reduce. What should we think of a government formed on those what would be our attitude if the right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Government benches could not be removed and we on these benches had no chance of removing them? Is


that the English ideal in framing a constitution? If you have all the legislative power, and if you have all the power of making appointments and promotions in the hands of a permanent government, irremovable by any electorate, you have the beginning not of a democracy but the beginning of a dictatorship by one section of the population over another.
The right hon. Gentleman responsible for this legislation knows as well as I do the vices of party government. He knows as well as I do the vices of the particular system of communal representation which is embodied in this new constitution, a communal representation which ensures the election by the particular community involved of people who will be extreme and not moderate in their opposition to the rival community, a communal representation which ensures that everybody who is elected shall not have, as we have, a general responsibility to all parties and to all classes in the community, but a responsibility only to one narrow body of religion. There you have in a nutshell the vices of communal representation which we have seen and which we have tried to destroy, but which we have never had here; and we are told that this constitution will tend to bring Jews and Arabs together. Communal representation and a statutory majority must inevitably have the same result in Palestine as they have had in Cyprus, in Syria and in India and as they are bound to have everywhere. Such a system will set the two parties by the ears more bitterly than ever, giving all the power to one and unending subservience to the other. This Constitution has now been read out to the various parties in Palestine. It has been emphatically rejected by the Jews, and the Arabs are still making up their minds whether they will accept it or reject it. But the responsibility of this Government is far greater and wider than a responsibility to those two elements in Palestine. We have a responsibility to the people of Palestine and to the Jews of the world—

Earl WINTERTON: And to the Arabs.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I said to the people of Palestine, to the Jews of the world and to ourselves. The responsibility of our nation at the present time is considerable. We are having thrust upon

our shoulders more and more responsibility. The leadership of the world is, indeed, in our hands to-day and the question of that corner of the Mediterranean, the possibility of building up there a friendly population and a firm support for that justice and liberty for which England stands—those are matters of greater importance to-day than ever before. Promises have been made but I call the attention of the House to the fact that the promise was a promise of a Legislative Council when democratic institutions had been tried and experienced in Palestine. They have had municipal councils there now for nearly a year—municipal councils, I would point out, elected in the Arab municipalities on a very limited franchise, whereas this scheme would involve manhood suffrage. Ought we not to say that the time has not yet come for such a change, that we cannot yet judge of the results of the municipal experiment? Ought we not to say, "Give us a few more years"? In any case, we were never pledged to this particular scheme which would, I submit, ruin any chance of developing Palestine in the future as it has developed in the past, supported by English justice, financed by Jewish capital and inspired by the desire of a great people for freedom. I submit that this scheme would destroy our hope of building up there the true support of that free people, of our building up that reputation which is of greater value to us than any material support, that great reputation of standing by humanity and justice in spite of all the terrorism and force which is being exercised from Germany to-day.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. CROSSLEY: I would like to preface the brief observations which I propose to address to the House on this subject by saying that I certainly am not an anti-Semite. I have many Jewish friends, some of whom are Zionists and some of whom, I would point out to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), are not Zionists. It appears to me that there is another background to this problem as well as the world Jewish background and one to which we ought to give equally serious consideration. In the first place, the people of Palestine are not Bedouin Only a very few of the people of that


country are Bedouin or have ever been Bedouin.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I did not pretend that they were. I mentioned the Bedouin as one small section of the population which had suffered.

Mr. CROSSLEY: Then I misunderstood the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. I understood him to stress the case of the Bedouin.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: The hon. Member must distinguish between the Bedouin in Palestine and the fellaheen.

Mr. CROSSLEY: My point is that the Palestinian—as I would prefer to call him rather than the Arab—has been settled in that country, whether he be Christian or whether he be Moslem, for something like 1,400 years. He has continuously lived during that period in that land as a farmer and there is one axiom which I would ask the House to accept. It is that when he loses his land he becomes a rather inferior being. He is dependent on his land, not only for his livelihood—though he may get more money by selling it to an incoming Jew—but also for his respectability and self-esteem. Nor is the Arab Palestinian a wholly ignorant person. He made some steps towards civilisation under the Turks. In 1908, Palestine sent its representatives to the Parliament in Constantinople. I do not know what benefits were thus conferred upon them, but, at any rate, it was a step forward. Then, they had municipal self-government before the War. Nevertheless, I do not think it right that this House should forget that when the War came the Arabs definitely wanted the Allied Powers to win. They helped us and whatever the truth may be about the MacMahon conversations—there were conversations—it is exceedingly doubtful whether Palestine was part of the territory to be reserved.
The time, however, came when we thought fit to have the Balfour Declaration incorporated in the Mandate. I accept that position. I agree that we cannot evade our responsibilities. We are tied up with the Mandate now, but I think that if we could at that time have foreseen the experience through which we have passed in the last few years, we should never have embarked upon it. The

Mandate is really a contradiction in terms. You cannot make a small country a national home for a great world people without, at the same time, prejudicing the rights of the existing inhabitants. The Zionism that has grown up in Palestine has really nothing to do with the old Jewish colonies of pre-War times. The old Jewish colonists, I agree with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, lived at peace with the existing inhabitants and were respected and appreciated. They were a religious, God-fearing, devout people. I do not think you could say that of the great majority of the Zionists who have come in during the last few years. Many of them are completely nonreligious people. They go to Palestine because they think they are more likely to get rich there under the protection of Great Britain and live under conditions which are rather better than the conditions in Poland from which many of them came. But they are not like the old German Jewish colonists who were never molested during the troubles of 1930.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: They were not German Jews; they were Polish Jews who went there before the War.

Mr. CROSSLEY: There were Jews of many nationalities there before the War but there were colonies of German Jews and they were highly respected.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: The hon. Member is quite mistaken. There were no German Jewish colonies at all. There may have been a few German colonies at Zammarin.

Mr. CROSSLEY: I too have been there. I could tell the right hon. and gallant Gentleman a little story of my experiences. Let us look at the country as it is. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman will not quarrel with the statement that the areas susceptible to intensive cultivation—the orange groves of Jaffa, the vale of Sharon, the plain of Acre, the valley of Esdraelon between Carmel and Nazareth, the valley between Nazareth and Beisan, the marshes of Huleh where they are drained, the district where formerly British residents in Jerusalem found their only recreation in duck shooting—all these have been completely taken away from the Arabs. Those are the fertile areas of Palestine and the greater part of all that area is now completely under Jewish cultivation.


Very little remains to the Arabs as was pointed out in the Hope-Simpson report. At the risk of taking the House over some some rather old ground I quote two extracts from that report. On page 66 it says:
The fellah is neither lazy nor unintelligent. He is a competent and capable agriculturist and there is little doubt that were he to be given the chance of learning better methods and the capital which is a necessary preliminary to their employment, he would rapidly improve his position. Meanwhile, however, the income which he can procure from this inadequate. farm is insufficient to maintain him in a decent standard of comfort and leaves no margin whatever for improvements.
The other extract is on page 64:
Evidence from every possible source tends to support the conclusion that the Arab fellah cultivator is in a desperate position. He has no capital for his farm. He is on the contrary heavily in debt. His rent is rising, he has to pay heavy taxes and the rate of interest on his loans is incredibly high.
Sometimes the moneylenders are Arabs and sometimes they are Jewish. But I do emphasise that it is unfortunate that we never saw fit to continue the old Turkish agricultural bank which was of such great value to the fellaheen before the War. Accepting the Mandate, as we have to accept it, what is the best thing for the House to do to end this continual dissension in Palestine? We ought to take it as an axiom that, if the Arab and Jewish population continue to mix indiscriminately there is no real chance of co-operation for an indefinitely long period. I do not think that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme would have such fear of the proposed Legislative Council, if he thought that the Arabs were not going to vote as one body. He seemed to put forward the suggestion that it was only the Arab upper classes who imagined that they had grievances. I do not think those two arguments are consistent.
To illustrate my point that the opposition comes from all classes of Arabs, I would like to tell a, story. I was riding on a pony between Beisan and Tiberias with my Arab groom, Abou Dahout. We came to the only works at that time existing in Palestine, the electricity works on the Jordan. We reached a gate on the other side of which was a main road. The Polish-Jewish sentry stood in the gate

and would not let us pass through, and reluctantly, because it was a long way round, I felt I had to go back about 20 yards and turn my pony and charge. I did so, and the Jewish sentry in the gate melted to one side. Then I beckoned to Abou Dahout to follow me, and he went back a good 200 yards, crossed his legs over the blankets and saddle bags, and came full charge. His arms flapped, and his legs flapped, and as he got near the gate he began making the most terrific yell, and as he got into the gate he leaned across towards the Jewish sentry, who was shrinking to one side, and expectorated with the greatest force I have even seen in my life, shouting at the same time, "Iyûn Abûn. al Kelb."

HON. MEMBERS: Translate.

Miss RATHBONE: Does that incident lead the House to believe that it is safe to put these Jews under the heel of the Arabs?

Mr. CROSSLEY: No, but it is really so significant of the attitude of the country. You continually see that kind of thing. I am not pleading for the Legislative Council to-day, and the hon. Lady is making a great mistake if she thinks I am. I am pleading that we are going on the wrong lines altogether, and I am trying to show that among the quite common people in Palestine there is great distrust.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Translate!"]. It means, "Curse your father the dog." The solution for which I am pleading is a system of cantonisation. I believe that you should schedule all those fertile lands from Jaffa to Acre, from Acre to Tiberias, and from Tiberias to Safed and say that they shall be Jewish cantons governed from Tel-Aviv. Conversely you should bring in Transjordania, transfer the Emir Abdulla to Nablus, and run an Arab kingdom of the hills and the Valley of the Jordan and the present country of Transjordania together. It is not a new idea. It was first advocated, I believe, by Mr. G. K. Chesterton, but since then it has been advocated on one occasion by Dr. Weizmann himself, who considered it in 1920 as a very possible way in which Palestine could develop in the future. It has been advocated also by a Mrs. Stewart Erskine, in a very remarkable book which she wrote recently, called "Palestine of the Arabs," and it was


advocated by the Jewish Press in Jerusalem in 1926.
If you had such cantonisation, you would have in one area a completely Jewish land, administered by Jews, and in the other you could reserve your land to the Arabs. The Jews would get, as indeed they have already got, almost the whole of the good land in Palestine, but you would compensate the Arabs in Palestine by bringing Transjordania into your Arab cantons, and you would, of course, have to reserve under the direct rule of the mandatory Power the holy cities of Jerusalem, probably Hebron, where the second most holy Mosque in the Mohammedan world is, and possibly Bethlehem.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not quarrel with me if I said most Jews really want the whole of Palestine in time, or else, alternatively, that they want to reduce the existing population to the position of the Hittites in the Bible, namely, "hewers of wood and drawers of water."

Lord EUSTACE PERCY (Minister without Portfolio): The Gibeonites.

Mr. CROSSLEY: Was it the Gibeonites? If that were done, the mandatory Power could not say that it had safeguarded the rights of the existing population, because those rights must depend on their having some self-prestige, and I do not see how you can preserve even the self-prestige which remains to the Palestinian Arab to-day unless you have some system of cantonisation and some preservation for him of definite areas of ground which are his.

4.52 p.m.

Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: I am sure the whole House feels grateful to the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), who opened this Debate, for the use which he has made of this opportunity and for starting the Debate in a speech which raised our discussion to so high a level of idealism and practical statesmanship. I feel gratitude also to the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Crossley), who in an extraordinarily interesting and sympathetic way put a very different point of view, though I must say that I did not find myself in very much agreement with

the point of view which he expressed. Let me take for example three of his statements. He said that the Arabs had been settled in Palestine for generations; he said that the landless Arabs—and he rather conveyed the impression to the House, whether deliberately or not I do not know, that there were a great many of them—who suffered from the intrusion of the Jews, suffered in their morale; and he said that the mandate contained a contradiction in terms which it was impossible to reconcile, namely, the ideal of the Jewish national home and the ideal of maintaining the interests of the existing Arabs in Palestine.
I believe that all those three statements are profoundly untrue. They do not, in the first place, take account of the statement of the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme about the immense benefits which have come to the Arab population there, such as higher wages and rising standards of living. It is perhaps not recognised in the House that in the Jewish citrus plantations, as was brought out in the minutes of the Mandates Commission last June, out of 10,000 workers, 7,500 are Arabs. I am not sure that it is quite realised that the Moslem population of Palestine, taking the nine years up to November, 1932, which are the latest figures available, increased from less than 600,000 to over 750,000, an increase of 28 per cent.

Mr. CROSSLEY: I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he will remember that during the later stages of the War there was the most appalling famine in Palestine, in 1917.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: That is true, but that does not validate the statement of the hon. Member that all the Arabs in Palestine have been living there for generations, when, as a matter of fact, over 28 per cent. have come there within the last nine years as a result of Jewish development, over a quarter of them, up to 1932, so that it cannot be said that they have all lived there for generations. What is the truth about the numbers of these landless Arabs? I think the truth is to be found in the Government report of 1934, I think it was, where it was shown that there were only 656 of them then, and that of them very few showed any disposition to avail themselves of opportunities of obtaining land. They


were not opplying for land, so that I think these landless Arabs are really a figment of our political discussions, and I do not think they correspond to any reality at all. Indeed, there have been, I understand, in the last few years anything from 15,000 to 25,000 Arab immigrants coming altogether from outside the country, those immigrants to whom the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was referring, coming largely from Transjordan, attracted, of course, by the higher wages and rising standards of living, which must inevitably attract them to Palestine from all the countries round about.
The hon. Member referred to our obligations to the Arabs during the War, and I for one want to recognise those obligations to the full. I am glad that he referred to them, because we really ought to bear them in mind. They fought very gallantly with us during the War, but were we ungrateful? Did we not carve out three Arab Kingdoms for the Arabs?

Mr. CROSSLEY: That cuts right across my main contention, which is that the great majority of Palestinians have been settled there for 800 or 900 years and have nothing whatever to do with the three Arab Kingdoms.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: But it was not the great majority of Palestinians who fought so splendidly for the Allied cause. It was the Arab peoples as a whole, and I am dealing with that contention. The hon. Member must not use two arguments and then object to my dealing with both of them. I am dealing with both, and the hon. Member must not confine himself to one only. He referred to the great debt which the Allies owed to the Arabs. I recognise it, and I say that we amply repaid it by creating the Kingdoms of the Hejaz and of Iraq and the Emirate of Transjordan. None of those things could have been done without our support.

Earl WINTERTON: This is a matter of great importance, which might cause great indignation in the Hejaz. The British Government had nothing to do with the creation of the Kingdom of the Hejaz, which was entirely created by Ibn Saud.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Ibn Saud over-ran the Kingdom of the Hejaz, but we actually enabled the Shereef to set up the

Kingdom of the Hejaz, and without our power it would not have been done.

Mr. CROSSLEY: rose—

Sir A. SINCLAIR: No, I really cannot give way again. It is rather discouraging to those of us who wish to obey Mr. Speaker's injunction to reply to previous speeches if we constantly have to give way in the course of our observations to allow other Members to interrupt. I hope the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), who is sitting next but one to the hon. Member, will take part in this Debate later, and, if so, I have no doubt he will be able to answer any point in my speech to which the hon. Member has not been able to answer. The hon. Member went on to say that the Jews were irreligious and that they came to Palestine to get rich quick. I think there is no stronger impression carried away from Palestine by those who visit the country than the idealism of the Jews, of the young men and young women who are working there building up a nation for the first time. They all feel that they are doing something which is being done by the Jews for the first time, in the Christian era, at any rate, namely, building up a country from the foundation, and they are all animated by that great spirit of idealism and transforming this whole State of Palestine. He went on to make the assertion that Huleh was a fertile area. He said a fertile area and he mentioned some other areas.

Mr. CROSSLEY: I said it would be when drained.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I can assure the hon. Member that he will find that he did not say that. He said that there were a number of areas including Huleh which were now the only fertile areas in Palestine. Those were his words as I took them down at the time. But so far from that being true, I have here a speech by the High Commissioner of Palestine delivered in December, 1934, in which he said that more sickness and suffering are caused by malaria to more people there than in any other district in Palestine. He went on to say that there is now every prospect that about 40,000 dunams of marshy land of little present value to anyone can be drained and made available for cultivation, and that the position of the local Arabs will be improved. I think that we ought to realise that the Jews are doing a great


work in Palestine not only for Jewry but for the Arabs too, and that both races—and I am sure we all want to see and are glad to see it—both are benefiting from this great constructive work which the Jews are carrying out there now. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman who opened this Debate, and think it is of the greatest importance that this work should be extended into Trans-Jordan.
Now the Government is proposing measures, I am sorry to say, which must have the effect of restricting Jewish immigration and development. I would rather see the Government come before the House and say that it was proposing to take constructive, positive measures which would help Jews and Arabs to develop their country in the common interest of the two races. No British capital would have to be supplied. Nobody is suggesting that for one moment. There is now a great surplus in the hands of the Palestine Government, a £6,000,000 surplus equivalent to two years' revenue; and now surely is the time when the Government there should be considering not plans for restricting anybody's enterprise but rather plans for liberating the constructive energy of both Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Article 6 of the Mandate says that the Government will encourage the close settlement of Jews on the lands, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes. Why is not that Article more extensively and whole-heartedly carried out? The land of Beisan for example. I do not know that it is generally recognised that the whole of Huleh, this great area of which I was speaking just now in answer to the arguments of the hon. Member—the whole of that great development is going to be carried out at the cost of the Jews.

Mr. CHURCHILL: And largely by their labour.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: And largely by their labour. I would say that the Government ought to see that this great surplus, which has been accumulated, more than half of it coming directly from the Jewish people, is used to help the Jews in these great schemes of development which will have the effect of increasing the revenue of the Government in no remote period of time. Then there is another similar question that I should like to mention, and

that is the question of the social services in Palestine. It was all very well up till quite recently for the Government to expect the Jews to look after all the social services of the Jewish population with very little help. But now that the Jewish population in Palestine is growing, and now that their enterprises are multiplying, it seems to me that they have a claim for a larger share of the public services than they are receiving at the present time. For instance on Jewish education £47,000 is spent out of £300,000 spent by the Government in Palestine, and on hospitals and medical institutions the Jews get £10,300 out of £300,000. I think that while it vas all very well to take the line that the Jews are comparatively rich, that the Arabs are comparatively poor, and that the Jews should look after themselves when the Jews had a comparatively small number of people to look after, now that their task is getting larger they ought to receive greater help from the Government than they are now getting.
Then I would refer for a moment to the very important question of immigration. There is a suggestion made that the Government are considering raising the qualifying minimum for Jews who come to Palestine with capital from £1,000 to £2,000. Now a great many of these men who come in with £1,000 have succeeded extremely well. £1,000 is enough in a great majority of cases to give them a start. The effect of raising the qualifying minimum to £2,000 would of course be to hamper immigration, and also to hamper the flow of capital into Palestine and retard the economic development of the country. It is Jewish capital which has created the recent extraordinary increase of economic prosperity in that country and has therefore created the absorptive capacity of Palestine, and to raise this minimum of capital from £1,000 to £2,000 would strike a serious blow at the economic prospects of Palestine, and particularly at German Jewish immigration, which for reasons which the right hon. Gentleman gave in his opening speech is of such enormous importance.
Then there is also the admission of relatives—and I hope the Secretary of State will be able to answer this point too—the admission of relatives dependent on Palestine residents is being made more difficult. There are two reasons why I think that very unfortunate, one is the


very strong family tie which exists in Jewish families; they feel the severance of the family tie enormously. But, apart from that, something like £900,000 or £1,000,000 is sent out of Palestine every year by the Palestinian residents to their dependents. Therefore if the dependants can be brought into Palestine you will save that.
I come to the last point on which I wish to dwell and that is the question of the Legislative Council. These unfortunate proposals for an important constitutional experiment are at any rate in one respect unique in our history. They are almost completely friendless. In Palestine they have already stimulated discord between Jews and Arabs and even among the Arabs themselves, some of whose organisations want to accept them and some of whom are very hostile. None of them support the proposals enthusiastically. The Jews are unanimously hostile. Only in this country have they been received with virtual unanimity, for the great bulk of political opinion in every party in the State is strongly opposed to them, while the Secretary of State and his representative in another place adopt an attitude of embarrassed and uneasy acquiesence in the proposals of the Palestinian Government. Even the hon. Member who has just spoken has made it quite clear that he dissociates himself entirely from these proposals and wants a new scheme of his own to which he has given a great deal of thought, and for which he has found a considerable amount of acceptance.
Knowing how many hon. Members wish to speak this evening, I want to confine myself to two points. First there is the practical Parliamentary aspect. A representative assembly can I think only work when there is a fundamental basis of consent. Our machinery in this House was nearly wrecked and had to be completely overhauled because of 80 Irish Members in a House of over 700, as it then was, who refused to recognise any foundation of consent, who wanted not to get the machinery of Government working well in the interests of the country but to prevent it working. They brought the machinery even of the august, mature and solid structure of Parliament here, almost to a standstill. Now in Palestine, in tins new body which is just going to be set up, it is proposed to give a majority of elected members to parties

who will be pledged to use the power of the Government to defeat the purpose of the mandate and if possible to secure its repeal.
This is the common platform as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out both of Christian and Moslem Arabs, who together will have a majority of two to one over the Jews. I am not sure whether hon. Members realise that the majority of Christian and Moslem Arabs, official and unofficial, will be two to one 14 to seven, over the Jews; and when you take the elected members, the-nominated members and the official members, Moslem and Christian Arabs, who will be pledged to defeat the mandate and to secure if possible its repeal, will actually have 50 per cent. of the total Council. If some of the members of the Council happen to be ill, or for any other reason unable to attend the Council, the opponents of the mandate will actually have a majority.
Now a situation less propitious for the gradual and sober healing of political differences could scarcely be devised. For or against the mandate will be the one issue at the election and the extremists of both parties will have the best chance of getting the votes of their electors. Nor can a Council, on which the opponents of the mandate are given equal representation with all other members, including official members, be other than a drag on the Government in its duty of putting forward constructive proposals for the development of the country and creating at the earliest possible moment a Jewish national home. It is an unfair and unreal argument to represent the Jews as the stumbling-block to the setting up of a legislative council and representative institutions in Palestine. The real stumbling-block is the demand of the Arabs for the repeal of the mandate. That is the stumbling-block at the present time. Until that obstacle is removed by the Arabs, I cannot help doubting the wisdom of setting up a legislative council at all, at any rate if half the representation of all the members elected, nominated and official, is given to those who demand the repeal of the mandate. That is surely an experiment which has very little promise of success.
My second point is that the Jewish interest in and contribution towards the prosperity of Palestine entitles them to


parity of representation on the council. For two thousand years they have been homeless, a minority in every country, and now Britain, with the support of the League of Nations, has pledged itself to give them a national home. That was nearly 20 years ago, and on the strength of that pledge vast sums of Jewish capital have flowed into Palestine, expanded the revenues, fertilised the soil and increased the population of the country, both Jewish and Arab. It is too late after all these years and all that effort to go back and condemn the Jews who have made that great effort, permanently to a minority status. Therefore, on both practical and constitutional grounds, I would beg the Government to think again before setting up this legislative council. The Palestine Mandate was a great experiment. As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who opened the Debate said, it has so far been wonderfully successful, although it is very far from being complete. The emergence, for example of Haifa, 15 years ago an insignificant little harbour, into a great port which is now one of the bases of British power in the Mediterranean, is one of the fruits of Jewish enterprise and is symbolic of the importance of the relations between Britain and Palestine, the Jewish national home.
I fully realise that the Secretary of State when he replies will have to bear in mind the position of our High Commissioner, who has rendered such splendid services to Palestine and has presided with such wisdom and impartiality over that country during his term of office; but I would suggest to the Secretary of State that this is a problem so difficult and of such vital importance that it is worth taking a little time and trouble about the constitution of Palestine. I would therefore urge that we should follow the precedent which has been set when Parliament has been dealing with problems of providing constitutions for other countries—India and Ceylon, for example—and should set up a Royal Commission, send it out to Palestine, and give it the task of advising us whether the time is ripe for the constitution of such a council, and if so on what lines it should be constituted so as to ensure the fulfilment of the ideal which inspired the Mandate, an ideal which has since suddenly and tragically become the

desperate need of hundreds of thousands of vilely persecuted men and women—the ideal of a national home for the Jewish people.

5.19 p.m.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. J. H. Thomas): If I were called upon to say whether the Belfour Declaration were justified, whether the Jews in Palestine were good citizens, and whether further encouragement and help for the Jews in the maintenance of their national home were necessary, I would without hesitation say "Yes" to all these questions. When I listened to my right hon. Friend in the very human and moving speech he made pointing out, unfortunately all too truly, the hell and horror through which Jewry is going at this moment, my sympathy was entirely with him. If this afternoon I were merely called upon to say what the British Government's view is in endeavouring to help the Jews at this time, I would first say that on my own responsibility, when the first attempt, which, unfortunately, has developed so rapidly, was made to persecute the Jews, I asked every Dominion whether they could make a contribution, I did that because I felt then, as I feel now, that it is a great human problem and that no words of mine would be too strong to condemn the persecution from which these people have been suffering. I can understand the Jews in all countries at this moment feeling and thinking, "When we are subjected to this treatment and when we are going through this troubled period, why should the British Government add to our sufferings in a proposal that we cannot other than feel is a proposal against our best interest?" I am trying to put myself in the position of the Jews viewing this question.
I must remind the House it is the proposal of the Legislative Council that I am called upon to defend, but I will answer my right hon. Friend by saying that he can rest assured that the suggestion of increasing from £1,000 to £2,000 which it was contemplated immigrants should hold will not be proceeded with. There was a suggestion that the Jewish Agency should he responsible for the question of immigration, and I am afraid that my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) gave some support to that. I have the authority of


Dr. Weizmann to say—and no one who knows his work and magnificent efforts would do other than pay tribute to him—that so far as immigration is concerned, the relationship between the Government and the Jewish Agency is such that he has no complaint to make, but has absolute confidence in its administration. Therefore, let me assure the House that there will be no interference of any sort with the power and authority of the Jewish Agency. With regard to the surplus of £6,000,000, that is in itself a magnificent tribute to Jewish enterprise. In the main it is Jewish money. Here, again, I am happy to inform the House that schemes of development of all kinds are under contemplation. I make that intimation because I hope the House will believe me when I say that if we were only debating the future of Palestine there would be no difference whatever in any part of the House. I was in the happy position in 1924, on behalf of the Labour Government, of endorsing the Balfour Declaration. It has justified every promise made on behalf of the Jews and fulfilled every desire of everyone anxious for its success.
We are faced this afternoon with a proposal for a legislative assembly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) would give the impression, not intentionally I am sure, that this was some new proposal quite suddenly thought about and introduced. He must have forgotten that he himself was a Member of the Government in 1932 which had to consider whether our representative at Geneva should, by the authority of the Government, go before the Mandates Committee and inform that body that he was speaking with the authority of the British Government in pledging the British Government to a legislative assembly—

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Sometime, but not this one.

Mr. THOMAS: Let us get the facts clearly. I only want to put the Government's difficulties before the House. I repeat that my right hon. Friend was a party to that declaration. What did it mean? We hear a lot to-day about the pledged word of the British Government and how necessary it is to keep our word and bond. When we instruct our High Commissioner to go to Geneva and, in

the presence of the nations of the world, to make a clear and definite declaration, it is difficult to go back on that and we must have very good reasons before we do it.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: The last thing I wanted to do was to disclaim my responsibility. I said that I did not want to refer to the whole historical controversy but to shorten my remarks, but what we did at that time definitely approve of was the extension of municipal councils, and it was certainly contemplated that at the end we should come to a legislative council, but no date was given, and there was no suggestion that it would not be on the basis of parity of representation.

Mr. THOMAS: Let us be clear. My right hon. Friend is in error there. That declaration was that the experiment of municipal government should be first introduced, to be followed by legislative powers. At the same time Dr. Drummond Shiels, who was then a Minister of the Labour Government, was instructed to go to Geneva and with absolute unanimity, as far as I know, on the part of the Labour Government, to welcome the clear declaration and promise that there should be established a legislative council.

Mr. CHURCHILL: When was there to be a council?

Mr. THOMAS: I will quote the words. The legislative council was to be established following the experiment of municipal government, but if my right hon. Friend asks me whether a given date was mentioned my answer is quite clear that there was no given date.

Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: If the words used were that it was to follow the experiment of municipal government does not that imply that the experiment was to be made first?

Mr. THOMAS: Certainly.

Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: And the experiment began a few months ago.

Mr. THOMAS: The experiment began a few years ago—two years ago, I think. The whole House wants to do the right thing, and I am pointing out what is fundamental to this whole Debate, that every Government without exception since 1922 has endorsed this pledge of


a legislative council. Therefore, Members in all parts of the House who were members of Governments must ask themselves in what way they themselves are responsible. But to go beyond that, in 1922, when Sir Herbert Samuel proposed the legislative council, its composition and membership, viewed from the standpoint of the Jews alone, was not nearly so satisfactory as this was. Then it was rejected by the Arabs and the Jews accepted it.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: And therefore you dropped it.

Mr. THOMAS: The Jews accepted it, the Arabs rejected it, in 1922.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: And what did the Government do?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Why was it less satisfactory to the Jews than this one?

Mr. THOMAS: I cannot answer, except to give the House the impression I have gained from discussions with Jews on the subject, and the answer I give is that in their view they felt then that the proposal made by the British Government was made with a desire to bring about what I still believe to be essential—not a Palestine for the Jews alone but a Palestine in which Jews and Arabs can co-operate together. All the information I have gained from discussions with prominent Jews has led me to believe that that was the view they took then. At all events that does not alter the fact that from 1922 to to-day every Government has been committed to a legislative council. The Government in 1932 instructed Sir Arthur Wauchope to declare at Geneva that they intended to give effect to it, and therefore, so far as the pledge is concerned, every party in the House is committed to it. But if one is to judge by the Debate this afternoon we are to assume that this legislative body, whenever it may be set up, will interfere in some way with the Mandate. I want to assure the House clearly and definitely that whatever may be the fate of the legislative council, if it is set up, and whatever the composition of the council may be, the Mandate is something that cannot be changed.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: It can be smashed.

Mr. THOMAS: My right hon. and gallant Friend says that it can be smashed. The answer I give on behalf of the Government is that it cannot even be a subject of discussion.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Not smashed in itself, but every piece of legislation that comes forward will affect the question of whether that Mandate can work or not.

Mr. THOMAS: I will deal with each point to show whether there is justification for the statement of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. I first assert that, so far as challenging the Mandate as a Mandate is concerned, no one in the legislative council will be allowed to debate it. The subject would be ruled out of order. The existing arrangement that the whole question of immigration is dealt with through the Jewish agency, the final word resting with the High Commissioner, will remain and will not be interfered with.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: What about legislation against illegal immigrants—putting these people in prison without trial?

Mr. THOMAS: The answer is that just as now the final word rests with the High Commissioner so it will in the future. That is the second safeguard. As to the third point, that the legislative assembly will be used as a platform for seditious propaganda, here again steps will be taken to safeguard the position, and it will be illegal for any newspaper to print seditious utterances although made in the legislative assembly.

Mr. CHURCHILL: This is the new Liberalism.

Earl WINTERTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say the process by which this extraordinary provision will be applied?

Mr. THOMAS: The process will be that the speaker of the legislative, assembly, whoever he may be will have the power to prevent any seditious speech being published by any newspaper.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: He will not understand Arabic.

Mr. THOMAS: That is provided for, because there is to be an interpreter who will know all the languages. It is only fair to say that although the Jewish community as a whole are opposed to the legislative council, all the proposals I


have mentioned, so far as the Mandate, migration and this latter point are concerned, are proposals which in their judgment go a long way to meet the situation. I have taken considerable pains to get to know their views, and it would be unfair to give any indication to the House that the Jews are not totally and absolutely opposed to the legislative council, but that does not alter what their views are on these particular proposals. Now we have the suggestion made that the legislative council should be composed of equal numbers of representatives of the different communities. I would ask the House to consider whether they could justify that proposal on the figures of the present population, which show 825,000 Moslems 100,000 Christians, and 320,000 Jews. I ask the House, regardless of their views about a legislative council, but assuming that Parliament has already indicated a desire to set it up—

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Did I hear the right hon. Gentleman say "assuming that Parliament authorises it to be set up"?

Mr. THOMAS: I said "assuming that"—assuming the legislative council was set up, would any one argue that the numbers of representatives of the Jews and Moslems is unfair to the Jews on the figures of population which I have quoted? Would it not be unfair, in face of those figures, to suggest, that we could do other than give effect to the figures suggested by the High Commissioner. I am, I hope, putting the position fairly to the House, because nothing would be more fatal than for a Minister to disregard the strong feelings and sentiments in this House. I am not unmindful of those strong feelings, but it is my duty to put the facts of the case from each side.
I go beyond that and ask the House to remember that there is not a responsible Jew with any knowledge of Palestine who would not agree straight away that the one man essential to Palestine in this difficult period is Sir Arthur Wauchope. There is not a responsible Jew who does not pay tribute to his magnificent qualities and who does not welcome the extension of office offered to him and accepted by him only a few months ago. Therefore, the Government must take into consideration his advice. The Government

must take note of the advice that he tenders to them. He says quite clearly and definitely that so far as promises are concerned every British Government have admitted it since 1922, and that so far as his declaration at Geneva is concerned, that was made on the instructions of a British Government of the day. If he believed, as he did and was entitled to believe, that he was carrying out the will and intention of the Government, it is up to the Government to support him in the difficult job he has at the moment.
He goes beyond it and says quite clearly that whatever may be said by those representatives who speak sincerely on behalf of the Jews, the Mandate indicates that we have an equally clear obligation to the Arabs. The Mandate presupposes Arab and Jew working together. Any other conception of Palestine would, in the long run, be disastrous to the Jews in Palestine. Even if you assume it for one moment, because there may be a temporary triumph of Jewry over the Arab, in the end it would be a profound mistake and disaster. Therefore, when the High Commissioner, with all his experience and knowledge says to the Government of the day: "I ask you to give effect, not to my pledge but to the pledge that you instructed me to give," no Government can disregard that advice. When he goes beyond it and says that in his solemn judgment to go back on that pledge at this moment would be as disastrous to the Jews as it would be to the future of Palestine, and that in his judgment and experience all the magnificent development to which all speakers have paid tribute, is the best proof that in economic affairs both Arab and Jew working together, the House will make a profound mistake in assuming that Arab and Jew do not work together in Palestine. The High Commissioner believes that the same spirit can be developed in the political field.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: rose—

Mr. THOMAS: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman objected to being interrupted himself.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I never did.

Mr. THOMAS: When it is proved that they work together in the economic field there is justification for hope of their working together in the political field. I answer on behalf of the Government that


every Government and every party who reverse this policy must reverse their previous decision, whether they be Labour, Liberal, Conservative or Coalition. I go beyond that, and I say that so far as adequate safeguards are concerned, the Mandate is ruled out, the question of the Jewish agency is ruled out and every effort is made to prevent this being made a platform for sedition. Equally, it gives an opportunity for Jew and Arab working together in a legislative assembly and getting an insight into government' and responsibility. In the considered judgment of the High Commissioner he believes that this will be in the best interests of both Jew and Arab. It is on this ground that the Government feel compelled to endorse this policy and I hope that I have been fair to the House in stating it frankly and entirely.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Everyone will agree with the Colonial Secretary in the emphasis which he laid on the importance of keeping pledges and not turning back from a course upon which you have embarked. Above all, keep engagements which you have entered into or foreshadowed at Geneva. He devoted an immense amount of force and argument to sustaining that proposition, but I am not aware that anyone in any part of the House had attempted to challenge it. The question which somewhat escaped notice in his statement was what exactly the pledge was. Under this formidable deployment of his argument in favour of keeping pledges, he kept very nicely in the background what, after all, is an essentially practical point which lies before us this afternoon: What was the pledge?
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) in a pertinent interruption, very patiently and courteously received by the Minister, put his finger upon this spot. The pledge, as I understand it, that was given at Geneva, and the policy which the Government have been pursuing all these years since the days when I was Colonial Secretary in 1922, was to move steadily forward into legislative self-governing institutions. That is the process which we are engaged in following out, but the issues which arise now are, has the moment come to take this step, and is this the right way in which to take it?

On those two issues very little light was thrown by my right hon. Friend. The word "experiment" has been used. When we made our undertakings at Geneva there was to be an experiment in municipal local government. If that experiment succeeded or an assurance was given that the Arabs urderstood how this matter was worker, then there was to be a forward movement into the larger sphere of central government.
That seemed to me a very sensible undertaking, and the right way to do it. Indeed, if my memory roes back to other controversies and other Parliaments, I seem to recollect that, some of us held the strong argument that the development of provincial autonomy in India should precede in India the development of the federal system, just as in the same way on a much smaller scale, to get the people of Palestine used to the local institutions and making a, success of those before you decide upon the central experiment, would seem to commend itself to ordinary reasonable people.
I was reading a Debate which took place in another place, where very detailed statements were made of the extremely slow and unsatisfactory development of these local or municipal institutions in Palestine. Indeed, we have not been without criticism even before the League of Nations upon the slow development of the local governments in Palestine. I have not the figures at my fingers' end, but there are a great many districts and municipalities in Palestine at the present time where the Arabs have been quite incapable of affording elements out of which these local institutions could be made. Why cannot you continue your educative process a little longer? Why cannot you be a little more patient in your experiment? We are not going to quarrel about the ultimate goal. By all means let us move forward step by step towards the central organisation of a legislative council for Palestine. The Colonial Secretary said that these experiments in local government have been going on for years, but on examination these several years turned out to be rather more than one year. That is a very brief experiment, with a race like the Arabs and conditions so deplorable, as we have been told they are, in respect of the progress made by local government—that is a very short


period, after which to hurry on to the second step.
Of course, if you nave, and when you have behind you a really successful example of the working of local government, when you have come to the point of Arab municipalities conducting their affairs with anything like the progressive vigour that is shown by the Jewish community, and when you have come to the point of the whole principle of local government having been implemented by the good will and activities of the population, your case will be enormously stronger for a forward movement. Then you will be fulfilling exactly the pledge which was given at Geneva and fulfilling it in the way in which it was intended to be fulfilled. This idea of producing a central Constitution, is much too lightly entered upon. I was reading in "The Times" newspaper this morning of the deplorable conditions which have developed in Ceylon from over-hasty action—another province of activities which fall within the supervision of my right hon. Friend.
From the point of view of the pledge and of the interests of the Arabs themselves as well as from the point of view of the whole of Palestine, it would be most unwise to take this plunge at this moment. I am very much impressed by the consensus of opinion against it. In reading the Debate in another place, I was astonished to see the names of the different noble Lords who spoke against the proposal. They represented every party, the Labour Opposition as well as the Conservative so-called die-hards, and men of great philanthropic detachment like Lord Lytton and Lord Cecil. These men, who are certainly not men to urge the breaking of pledges or to suggest reactionary policies to Parliament, seemed united that this is not the wise thing to do at this moment and this is not the right moment in which to do it.
I may say that I respect the Colonial Secretary standing up for the opinion of the Governor. You could not have a better Governor, a man of the very greatest ability in every way, but, at the same time, these matters ought not to be settled by the opinion of one man. Parliament has great responsibility and is not prepared to say that a Colonial Governor, however eminent he may be, who takes a view-point on a particular matter must necessarily have his view

enforced upon Parliament. Parliament has other responsibilities. The right hon. Gentleman has assured us that the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration are safe, but I personally feel great doubts about that. If you have an Arab majority, undoubtedly you will have continued friction between the principle of the Balfour Declaration and the steps that must be taken day by day and month by month to give effect to that Declaration and the wishes of the Arab majority. I should have thought it would be a very great obstruction to the development of Jewish immigration into Palestine and to the development of the national home of the Jews there.
I have no hostility for the Arabs. I think I made most of the settlements over 14 years ago governing the Palestine situation. The Emir Abdullah is in Transjordania, where I put him one Sunday afternoon at Jerusalem. I acted upon the advice of that very great man Colonel Lawrence, who was at my side in making the arrangements, which I believe have stood the test of time and many changes of government throughout the Middle East. But I cannot conceive that you will be able to reconcile, at this juncture and at this time, the development of the policy of the Balfour Declaration with an Arab majority on the Legislative Council. I do not feel a bit convinced of it, even though Sir Andrew Walker may be of that opinion. I do not feel convinced when I see so many other people who have studied the matter, and who are friends of Palestine, friends of the Arabs, friends of the Jews, who view this departure at the present moment with the very greatest misgiving.
We are doing very fine work in Palestine at the present moment. When I travelled through the country a little more than a year ago I was enormously impressed with the order and smoothness with which the administration was being conducted. If you go into neighbouring countries, like Syria, you see that there is also order and progress, but enormous military forces are used. Scores of thousands of troops are maintained in the country. I always consider that our administration must be judged, in comparison with these countries, not by the fact that they can govern with overwhelming military forces—anyone can do that—but that we can conduct progressive administration with


the comparatively small forces that we employ in those areas.
Do not be in a hurry to overturn the existing system. It is working very well. It it not as though it had got into such a state that you said that you could not go on any more with the present administration, and that, although your local government institutions have completely failed up to date, or have made no success of their experiment, nevertheless you must plunge into the larger field. That is not the position. You are in the full tide of a successful experiment in British administration and your local government is moving forward in a very slow manner. Surely, therefore, you can afford to wait for some other time. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that if, under the advice of Parliament or under the persuasion which reaches him from any quarter, he decided that this matter could not go forward this year or next year, but that he would wait for some other time—does he suggest that he would feel himself guilty of a breach of faith, of a breaking of the pledge given to the League of Nations? It is absurd. I have not the slightest doubt that, if our representatives at Geneva explained the position as it has been explained in this House from every bench, they would get cordial support for not taking this step at the present moment, from the authority whom they have a right to consult.
I have been speaking of this matter in connection with Palestine, but of course, there is in our minds an added emphasis upon this question of Jewish migration which comes from other quarters, at a time when the Jewish race in a great country is being subjected to most horrible, cold, scientific persecution, brutal persecution, a cold "pogrom" as it has been called—people reduced from affluence to ruin, and then, even in that position, denied the opportunity of earning their daily bread, and cut out even from relief by grants to tide the destitute through the winter; their little children pilloried in the schools to which they have to go; their blood and race declared defiling and accursed; every form of concentrated human wickedness cast upon these people by overwhelming power, by vile tyranny. I say that, when that is the case, surely

the House of Commons will not allow the one door which is open, the one door which allows some relief, some escape from these conditions, to be summarily closed, nor even allow it to be suggested that it may be obstructed by the course which we take now.
All I can say is that I hope my right hon. Friend will consider this matter very carefully. This is the Consolidated Fund Bill, and we cannot divide upon this matter, but I trust that, unless the Government give far more satisfactory undertakings than have fallen from my right hon. Friend this afternoon, the two Opposition parties, who have control of the Supply days, will choose a Supply day at a suitable time hen we can bring this matter, not merely to the test of Debate, but also to the test of a Division.

6.6 p.m.

Mr. MATHERS: I only wish to follow the Colonial Secretary for the simple purpose of dealing with one of the points that he made. I came into the House when he was invoking the name of Dr. Drummond Shiels, and, as I understood him, claiming in that way to justify the position that he is taking up to-day. He quoted what Dr. Drummond Shiels had said at Geneva while a Labour Government was in office in this country. I am able to give him more up-to-date information with regard to the point of view of Dr. Drummond Shiels, who was Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Labour Administration. From a letter written within the last few weeks, discussing some of these points, I am able to give his point of view. In dealing with the Ceylon Constitution he points out that the intention of the Donoughmore Commission was that there should not be—there was not, of course, in Ceylon—communal representation, and that the functions of the executive officers of State should be advisory. I think that perhaps the easiest way for me to express the opinion of Dr Drummond Shiels, which I fully endorse, is to read his letter, instead of endeavouring to put it in my own words. He says:
The Donoughmore, Commission had very definitely in mind the needs of other parts of the Colonial Empire, and their proposals were intended to form a set of principles which might be applied as occasion offered in the general development of self-government. In the Palestine Proposals, however, we are back to a scheme which, as Mr. Wedgwood points out"—


the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) had been writing to the "Times" at that period—
failed badly in Cyprus, and is likely to have worse effects in the difficult conditions of Palestine. Communal representation is, admittedly, the worst basis for any constitution. It has, unfortunately, been retained unchanged in India, as it was not thought possible even to institute the halfway house which would have made its later abolition simpler. There is no reason, however, why we should begin it in Palestine, where it will certainly prevent that ultimate co-operation of Jews and Arabs in government and administration which is the only hope for the peaceful working out of the problems of that fascinating but troubled country. Apart from this grave objection to the form of the proposed council"—
I want the right hon. Gentleman to note this:
I am convinced that any legislative body in Palestine at this time is a mistake. I am not influenced by the objections of the Jewish authorities (which are natural enough), but because I believe that the effective development of local self-governing bodies should precede any national or state legislature. It is often forgotten that the development and strength of democratic institutions in this country have their origin and sound basis in our long history of local government, and it is admitted that our most useful Parliamentarians are those who have had training and experience in local bodies.
His concluding paragraph is as follows:
In Palestine, apart from Jerusalem and Haifa, and, of course, Tel-Aviv, there is little development of municipalities and local councils. Those already in being have been most useful in enabling Arabs and Jews to work out together solutions to their common problems. Let this process continue and extend, and in good time there will be a reservoir of available representatives, with some experience of administration, who can be elected, on a constituency basis, to serve the whole community. Better this than a council which will be a mere forum for communal strife, which will neglect the practical needs of the people, and be a perpetual embarrassment to the Mandatory power.
It is to express that opinion, and to bring up to date the right hon. Gentleman's view with regard to my friend, with whom I was associated while the Labour Government was in office, to endorse my friend's opinion, and, indeed, to express that opinion as my own, that I have ventured to intervene in this Debate. I hope I have shown that the right hon. Gentleman is not quite justified to-day in quoting, as I assumed him to

do, the attitude of Dr. Drummond Shiels at Geneva, while Labour was in office, as an indication of the position in which he stands to-day.

6.13 p.m.

Captain CAZALET: After the brilliant speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), it seems almost unnecessary for anyone to take up the cudgels to-day on behalf of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, nor is it easy to find any other argument to try to deter the Government from taking what I believe to be the very rash and dangerous step which they contemplate taking at the present moment. I was glad to hear certain of the observations of the Colonial Secretary—for instance, with regard to the fact that no change is contemplated in the organisation of the Jewish Agency in Palestine, and that there is to be no change in regard to those Jews who can produce £1,000 capital, and who, by that fact alone, will continue to be admitted straight away into Palestine. But the mere fact that it was in contemplation to increase that amount shows that forces have been at work to try to prevent or deter a continuation of that policy, to which I believe we are not only vitally committed, but in the working out of which the British Empire may look forward in Palestine to a country which in the near future may contribute very considerably both to its prosperity and to its safety in that part of the world.
It is almost impossible for a Debate on Palestine to take place without some Members trying to deplore the fact that we ever accepted the Mandate for Palestine, or that we ever accepted the Balfour Declaration for the establishment of a Jewish National Home; but it is no use going back on that. Whatever may have been the arguments used in those times, or used again to-day, we have to face the position as it is, and anyone who occupies the post of either Colonial Secretary or High Commissioner must, we all recognise, have a very difficult task indeed in reconciling the interests of the Jews and the Arabs. I am very glad indeed to hear in all parts of the House words of praise of the tact and sympathy that the present High Commissioner has shown in the last two years. Nothing, after all, is to be gained in the long run by trying to play


off one community against the other. The Colonial Secretary has explained that we are committed to the establishment of some form of responsible Government at the centre but, as I understand it, we are committed neither to the time nor to the details. Therefore, although we appreciate the difficult position in which he is put to-day, it really does not seem to me to be an insuperable problem that by some means or other we should be able to defer the setting up of this legislative council without being accused by the Arabs or by any one at Geneva of having broken our promises.
After all, what is it intended to do? As I understand it, we are going to enfranchise some 250,000 or more people, the large majority of whom are completely illiterate. They have had practically no experience whatever in representative Government or in the manner in which they should exercise the vote and, however you like to interpret the numbers of the proposed legislative council, as a matter of fact it will develop into an Arab majority. Every question, therefore, that is raised will be debated purely on racial lines without any attention whatever to the merits of the case itself. The Arabs themselves have on many occasions definitely stated that they are prepared to join the Legislative Council because they believe it will be the best means of defeating the objects of the Balfour Declaration. Only last Friday in a leader in an organ of the Arabs which is usually noted for its moderate views the following passage occurred:
We shall be able to use the Legislative Council for exposing the policy of the Jewish national home and arraigning His Majesty's Government before the Moslem and Christian world for upbuilding the national home.
Surely, if that is to be the attitude of the majority of the members of the Legislative Council, it does not promise well either for the harmony of its working or for the effectiveness with which it could possibly carry out any legislation. Reference has been made to the experience of the municipal council. I believe the facts are that up to a year or two ago there was a municipal council operating in Jerusalem. It consisted originally of eight Arabs and four Jews and, as long as the majority was in the hands of the Arabs, it was absolutely impossible to

do anything. The Jews merely had to suggest something to have it immediately turned down. It is only fair to say that in the last part of 1934 a municipal ordinance was issued and the representatives were changed to six Jews and six Arabs with an Arab chairman and since that time, although I would not say it has been a great success, they have put up some useful work. [Interruption.] Although that fact can be used, it must never be used without also mentioning that the electorate on which it was based was entirely different from that on which it is proposed to elect the Legislative Council.
No doubt, there may come a time when it may be right to build up some responsible Government at the centre, but I do not believe that time is now, nor do I believe that the details that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to-day are likely to make for harmonious future. Of course, the idea is that one day you may hope to find, out of those who constitute the youth of the country to-day, a body of people who will put a local national pride in Palestine before the question of either Arab or Jewish nationality. After all, such a thing did not look very possible in South Africa some years ago, but to a very large extent among the younger generation of South Africa there has grown up a body of opinion which is South African in its point of view rather than pro-Dutch or pro-English. Certainly there are no very definite signs of that spirit in Palestine to-day. I know that the argument can be used against my attitude in regard to the Indian legislation last year, but we have had in the past few years in Cyprus and in Kenya, and very recently in Ceylon, the deplorable effects of trying to make what I believe to be a purely artificial system of Government work in countries where neither the intelligence nor the experience of the inhabitants is fitted to work in with that kind of Government. Do not let us make the mistake again that we have made in those Crown Colonies.
The position seems to me to be this. Everyone desires to get out of this situation. The Jews in Palestine will have nothing to do with it. The Jews outside Palestine are unanimously against it. No one in this country as far as I can make out, supports it. The Secretary of State, if I can judge his opinion, is not


really very enthusiastic about it. I should not be at all surprised if the High Commissioner, who is to be responsible for the effects of it in the next few years, if he could with honour see his way out of it, would not also welcome it. As far as I can make out, the Arabs are divided. In any event they are going to get very little out of it except to put off the day when they and the Jews can settle down together and work out a practical policy. As Chateaubriand once said:
I know that people beat their heads against an existing wall, but I have never known people first building a stone wall and then beating their heads against it.
It seems to me that the Government, in supporting the establishment of a Legislative Council, are perhaps performing this curious function.
May I say a few words in regard to the question of land? The right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Liberal benches gave a great many facts, and it is extremely useful that the House should know that there has been a great deal of propaganda in the last few months suggesting that the policy that we have been pursuing has acted to the detriment of the Arabs, and that there are hordes of landless Arabs turned out of their property by the Jews. Nothing is further from the fact. It has been calculated that, if the Jews continued to purchase for a 100 years at the same maximum rate as they have been purchasing land, something like 14,000 or 15,000 acres a year, they would not even then own half the cultivable area of Palestine. After all, surely a very acid test is this: Has the existing condition of affairs reacted against the real interests of the Arabs? If so, why has there been an increase in the Arab population? Why has there been a desire on the part of Arabs in Egypt, Transjordania and Syria to come into Palestine? Because there the conditions are better, wages are higher, and they are more likely to get jobs than in the surrounding country. If there is one thing that the Arabs want, and must have, to develop their land, it is money. Where are they to get it from if not from the Jews? Are the Government going to lend them an unlimited supply of money? The most prosperous Arab farms are in the Jewish districts. The Arabs must have money to develop their land, to pay off their debts, to bore wells for water and to buy implements. All these neces-

sities have been provided in a very large measure by the advent of the Jews, and if you deny to the Arab the right to sell a portion of his land, you not only make that portion perfectly useless to him, but you deprive him of getting that very money which will enable him, and has enabled him in thousands of cases, to develop what is left to him and become, as many thousands of others have become, prosperous farmers.
I intervene in the Debate, not because I have a great knowledge of Palestine, but primarily because I am a descendant of a Huguenot family. On account of religious persecution in France vast numbers of Huguenots 250 years ago had to secure a refuge in other countries and, if it had not been for the generous hospitality given to my ancestors, and thousands of others similarly placed, by England, by Holland and by America, I certainly should not be standing here to-day. I say it humbly, but I do not think that that generosity which was extended to the Huguenots in those days has reacted unfavourably to the countries that accepted them. To-day once again the greatest religious persecution that we have known for hundreds of years is taking place. I am not suggesting that Palestine should immediately accommodate 300,000 or 400,000 Jews, who would only too willingly leave Germany if they were able to do so, but in the eyes of persecuted Jews, particularly in Germany, freedom and hope for themselves and for their families is so intimately associated with the work that we are doing in Palestine, with the idea that if they can once leave Germany they may at some future time find peace, and find the hope of a livelihood for themselves and their families in Palestine, that to take any action to-day which is going to be a check upon that policy, which is going to be immediately interpreted as a revision of the policy that we have so far pursued, is going to deal to a large body of people who, obviously, have the keen sympathy of everyone in the House, a blow which, I believe, will be as cruel to them as, in the long run, it will be against the best interests both of Palestine and of this country.

Mr. BOOTHBY: On a point of Order. May I draw attention to the fact that this is a Colonial Debate which is not going unanimously in favour of the Government, and is it not due to the House that there should be on the


Government Bench a representative to take charge of this matter?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think the representative of the Government is very far away.

6.31 p.m.

Colonel CLIFTON BROWN: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) has initiated a very interesting Debate, and although I cannot entirely share all his views, the Debate has certainly been of great help. Speakers have suggested that perhaps it was not quite the time to go in for legislative proposals, that the prosperity of Palestine was so great and the revenue was coming in so well, that we might have more usefully employed ourselves by introducing schemes of land development and so on, which would cost some money to the Palestine Budget. I wonder whether the Palestine Budget is really as safe as all that. We know that there is a big surplus. The country depends upon capital which is coming in from the Jews. It is coming in small amounts, and is not being expended largely on productive enterprise. I believe that the Palestine Government is wise in husbanding its financial resources, and that the day may come when the revenue may not flow in so well. The competition in regard to the production of oranges is so great that one realises that the price will have to fall, and when it does, the price of land will probably go down also. Much of the land has been bought on borrowed money and thus there are dangers ahead, and I doubt whether the Palestine Government would be wise in spending money recklessly.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) painted a background in Europe. I would remind them that it is an Eastern background, and one which must not be neglected. We are all most sorry for the Jews and their sufferings, but we should remember that Palestine is only a small country and part of a big continent where there are millions of Arabs in Iraq and in Arabia and right down the Hejaz. These countries constitute our means of communication with the East, and if the inhabitants are not, at any rate, friendly, our material communications may be endangered. There are two points of view,

and we must include the Arabs of the East. It is reasonable to understand how much the Arabs fear the invasion of the Jews. They find them going into a country which they regard as sacred, and taking their land—it flay be by purchase—and they realise that, as far as the Western world goes, the Jew is able to pull the strings in this Parliament, and at Geneva or elsewhere more than they can ever hope to do. While the dangers may not be so great as they imagine, fear is at the back of their minds, and fear perhaps is one of the greatest dangers to peace. We shall do wrong if we minimise that fact. The High Commissioner came to London two years ago. He had already announced his intention of proposing a council. He went back from London not having achieved his object, and Arab confidence in the Commissioner at that time was severely shaken. If he has his proposals rejected now, his position as far as the Arabs are concerned would be made extremely difficult.
I beg of the House to realise that this is not a matter to be thought of lightly. It is not a country where matters are debated in a Chamber like the Parliament in this country, but a country where blood feuds still exist. If the High Commissioner once lost the trust that the Arabs now have in him, we should require soldiers and have to face what we had to go through seven years ago. There will not only be a far worse situation throughout Palestine, but throughout the bordering countries as well. In view of this, it is important that we should do something now, and not let matters hang on and the proposed Council be delayed much longer. There is another very important function which a council could perform. The Palestine Press is either Jew or Arab—none of it is neutral—and it is very difficult with a biased Press on each side to formulate public opinion. If you once set up a council or parliament of some sort with the High Commissioner in control, you could get the arguments of the Government and of one side or the other known and dealt with. Is would not matter bow biased the Press might be, for whether they were Arab or Jew, they would have to put up the arguments, and you would begin in that way to formulate public opinion which it was not possible to formulate in any other way.
The Council, even if badly composed, would be, I think, of very great value in helping to form a Palestinian public opinion. That would be one of the most important functions of the Council. Why should my Jewish friends mind because they have not a majority? They have their great municipal councils of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa which are mainly run by Jews. They have all the experience and a superior technique, and should be able to carry the day. It is not merely a question of numbers, but of brains very often, and of organisation. I should have thought that the Jews would have had nothing to fear in a Chamber in which, although the Arabs have an actual majority over the Jews, there is a balancing factor in the way of official members and those appointed on the commercial side.
On those grounds the Government were absolutely right in backing Sir Arthur Wauchope. I think that I am the only Member in this Debate who has said so. I have been in the habit of going out to Palestine ever since the time of Sir John Chancellor. I have been almost every year and I know something about those Eastern countries. I suggest that the present is a good time for two reasons. One is that you have a Commissioner in Sir Arthur Wauchope, who, admittedly, is responsible for much of the improvement which has taken place in Palestine since the riots of seven years ago. This is the man who proposes that we should set up a Council now. He has had his period of office extended, I suppose, by five years. Is it not really common sense, if a man is making a success of his job and if he makes a proposal, to carry out that proposal while he is still there and able to start it, and to see it on its way? Having set our hands to the plough and said that we are going to do it, it would be fatal to our prestige, and to the way we control and have the trust of Jews and Arabs in Palestine, if we back out now. We have allowed our High Commissioner to say that we were going to do it, and it would be folly and unfair to Palestine if we backed out and failed to establish that which we promised to give to them.

6.41 p.m.

Mr. HOPKIN: Hon. Members in all parts of the House will agree that in dealing with modern Palestine we are

dealing with a modern miracle, and the only question is whether this modern miracle has been created at the expense of the Arabs. I should certainly not stand here and oppose as vigorously as I can the establishment of this Legislative Council, if I thought that the entrance of the Jews into Palestine had in any way done an injustice to the Arabs. I contend that quite the opposite is true. This is shown in two cases. First of all, one notices that the Arab population, particularly around Jewish colonies, has increased to the extent of 28 per cent. Over and above that, from 15,000 to 25,000 other Arabs have come in from surrounding countries and have all found work in Palestine itself. It is only necessary to take the road up the Vale of Sharon to compare the differences in the Arab villages with the Arab villages on the hills. Wherever the Arabs have been able to sell their land in order to get capital they have there and then built much better houses, and they have most certainly a higher standard of living. I fought in Palestine for about 15 months, and I again visited it in 1929, and I had the same experience as everyone who has ever been to Palestine. The differences in the years between 1919 and 1929 are simply astonishing. There are new towns and villages, and the whole country has been cultivated, and indeed, the whole face of the country has been changed. That is what has been done in the last 15 years in Palestine.
It is well to emphasise the point that was brought out by my right hon. Friend, that the Jews own only 5 per cent. of the cultivable land in Palestine, and we are dealing now with a country only the size of Wales. From 1930 to 1933 the Jews bought 23,400 acres, and Sir John Hope Simpson says that there are altogether in the whole country 2,000,000 acres of land which are cultivable. It is one of the signs of the tremendous success when one knows that the Budget surplus in 1935 in this very small country came to £6,200,000 and that in 1922 the exports of this country amounted to only £1,000,000 and in 1935 to £4,500,000. There is another way of showing how the land has changed. In 1922 the number of cases of oranges exported was 1,250,000; in 1935 in was 7,500,000. I use as an example to show the change that is taking place in Palestine the changed conditions in the Vale of Esdraelon, which is in the


North of Palestine and comprises some 50 or 60 square miles of territory. The High Commissioner in his report 1920-25 on the administration of Palestine says of the Vale of Esdraelon:
When I first saw it in 1920 it was a desolation. Four or five small and squalid Arab villages, long distances apart from one another, could be seen on the summits of low hills here and there. For the rest the country was uninhabitable There was not a house, not a tree.
That was the picture in 1920. In 1935 there were something like 35 villages with schools. The area is now occupied by 9,000 to 10,000 Jews. Formerly only 688 Arabs lived on the same land. With regard to the point about displaced Arabs, this is one of the examples which shows that there is no merit at all in the argument that a number of Arabs were displaced. Of the 688 Arabs who were displaced from the area 437 found farms in other parts of the country, in fact, of these 688 people only 41 of them could not be traced. Every one of the others has either been placed on a farm or has gone into the towns to work. I desire to draw the attention of the Secretary of State to the terms of Article 2 and Article 6 of the Mandate:
The Mandatory shall he responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative, and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home as laid down in the Preamble to the Mandate, and the development of self-governing institutions.
With great respect, I submit that if the idea and policy of the Legislative Council is continued, the terms of the Mandate cannot possibly be carried out. I am going to make a personal appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. He is a Welshman like myself. Is it going to be said in the future that one great Welshman set Palestine up and that another great Welshman by his action in this legislative council, completely ruined it? On the one side we are bound by the terms of the Mandate, and on the other side the right hon. Gentleman's policy will undoubtedly set up proposals which will make the Mandate completely impossible. I entirely agree with the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) when he says that more should be done to develop municipal government. I have the figures for the district of Jerusalem. In that district there are 164,000 people but only 1,934 electors; that was in 1934. If the

Secretary of State wants to put things right and on a democratic basis, he should start with the Moslem Supreme Council, the members of which have been the same for years. They are not appointed on any democratic principle whatever.

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Is the hon. Member making that suggestion as a step towards peace in Palestine?

Mr. HOPKIN: Certainly. I was there at a time when the two peoples were warring against each other and the one thing which produced thy greatest hatred between the two was this Moslem Supreme Council. The right hon. Gentleman knows that if the head of that council had had a greater loge for peace and conciliation, 1929 would have been impossible. But in addition to this council, it is proposed to deal with the land question. Let me read the terms to the House.
The Secretary of State approves in principle of the enactment of legislation whereby, except in the sub-district of Beersheba and in the urban areas and also except as regards land planted with citrus, no landowner shall be permitted to sell any part of his land unless he retains a minimum area which is sufficient to afford a means of subsistence to himself and his family; as a safeguard against collusive sales this minimum area shall be inalienable and shall revert to the Government if it ceases to be cultivated by the owner-occupier.
The point has already been made that this land under these conditions is utterly useless to the owners There is this further point, that there is no indication in that statement as to the size of these subsistence areas. The question of the displacement of Arabs is always brought up as an excuse for dealing with this land trouble. In 10 years there have been 654 Arabs displaced, and of these every one of them was offered land, but only a very small proportion took up the land which was offered. I suggest that the right and best way to deal with this problem is to follow the policy adopted in an area known as the swamp of Huleh, in the northern part of the country, which consists of some 40,000 dunams. The; e dunams have been handed over to a Jewish company to drain and cultivate, and 16,000 dunams have been set aside for the exclusive use of the Arabs. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman could carry on precisely the same system with


advantage on the lands at Beisan. Further, I suggest that instead of going on with this legislative council, the right hon. Gentleman should deal with the law relating to land in Palestine and stop the wholesale encroachments which take place now. In fact a number of law cases have been undertaken quite unnecessarily at tremendous expense to the Jewish owners. I refer particularly to the Hartieh group, the land of which, I believe, has been the subject of about half a dozen law suits.
I suggest that Palestine can be extended in two ways: First, by the inclusion of Transjordania; and, secondly, by intensive cultivation. This country has two great opportunities in Palestine. In the first place—this is an argument which I am sure will appeal to the right hon. Gentleman—there are our Imperial duties. This is a country which can be made great and useful to the Empire, lying as it does across one of the nerves from this country to the Far East. By encouraging the Jewish population in Palestine he will provide in the country itself an industrial population which will be more than useful to this country in case of war. In the second place, Palestine is for thousands and thousands of Jews a haven of rest, and it is up to this country to keep the door open—I am certain the right hon. Gentleman will do nothing to close the door if we decide to keep it open—for the people particularly of Germany and of Poland. Those who have read a book called "Yellow Spot" will have had brought home to them in a way that nothing else has brought it home, the infamy of the people in Germany in treating the Jewish people in the way they are being treated now. The Jews in Germany and in Poland are looking to Palestine as a last resource of help. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, who himself belongs to a small nation, to do nothing to close down the only hope which is now in the breasts of thousands of people who are looking to Palestine as their last place of refuge.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. AMERY: The speech of the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin) has emphasised, as indeed every speech in the Debate has emphasised, the fact that there is absolutely no inconsistency between the fulfilment of our mandatory obligation of setting up and encouraging

a Jewish home in Palestine, and our obligation to look after the welfare of the Arab population. Both obligations are equally important, and it is well that the point of view of the Arab should be ventilated in this House, as it was in the interesting and attractive speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Hexham (Colonel Clifton Brown). The real question raised in connection with the setting up of this proposed constitution is whether we can possibly reconcile the fulfilment of our duty under the Mandate with any attempt to give concessions to, or try to curry favour with, Arab nationalism. The two things are incompatible, and when it comes to the actual decision to create this new constitution, I cannot help noting the fact that the announcement in Palestine was made, not in response to any appeal from any large section of Members of this House, or to any appeal on the part of the Mandates Commission at Geneva, but as an answer to the memorandum of an Arab political party, who demanded the immediate creation of democratic government, an immediate prohibition on further Jewish immigration and an immediate prohibition on further sales of land to Jews in Palestine. They were demanding the direct abandonment of the whole mandatory pledge that we had given internationally, and to which we are committed.
It would have been better if such an appeal had met with a direct and straight answer. The answer that was given was somewhat evasive and diffident. It said that there was no question of total prohibition of immigration: that would be governed by economic circumstances. It said that there was no question of no land being sold: there would be legislation which would prevent a good deal of the land being sold. It said that there would be a largely democratic constitution. I do not believe that is the spirit which conduces either to prosperity or to peace. As to the time at which the constitution is to be introduced, I need not say more than was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping. The natural instinct in this House is to believe that the Government is the body to judge best of the times and occasions in these matters, and all sections in this House have a great respect for the character and abilities of Sir Arthur Wauchope.


Yet there is something about the manner in which these proposals have been introduced that makes us doubtful whether this is the best time that has been chosen.

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I want to make it clear that it is not the duty of a Secretary of State to transfer his responsibility to a Governor. If there has been any impression created to the contrary I want to remove it straightaway. The Government of the day, whether right or wrong, take the responsibility. Sir Arthur Wauchope only gives effect to it. I hope there will be no suggestion of blaming Sir Arthur Wauchope. He is performing a difficult and delicate task. Do not blame the man who is doing his job.

Mr. AMERY: I am delighted my right hon. Friend has said this. I hope nothing I have said could suggest that the responsibility was placed anywhere except where it constitutionally belongs. But I do not wish to discuss the question of time so much as the method employed. This constitution has some rather peculiar features. The qualifications demanded of Mr. Speaker, and the powers entrusted to him, are rather remarkable. I do not know how far you, Sir, would welcome them with enthusiasm. He has apparently to preside over an Assembly which talks in Arabic, Hebrew and English, and to be guided by an interpreter whether the speeches are in order or not, whether they are seditious and should not be printed, or whether they touch on the Mandate and should be stopped. The question that occurs to me is—is the interpreter to be a Jew or an Arab? At once the whole political problem is raised there. Apart from that interesting feature, this constitution is one of a, stock type, with an extraordinary lack of originality. In conditions so novel and peculiar as those of Palestine we are reverting to an old-fashioned type, and we trust to the official vote balancing the conflict between the members.
Where you have a majority hostile to the very existence of a minority, determined on every occasion to give effect to that hostility, what is the result? The result is that the Government and the official members are put into a wholly false and, in the long run, an impossible position. They are continually put into

the position of backing one element in the Chamber against the other, and when they have done that four or five times in succession the desire to show themselves impartial by voting the other way on the sixth occasion becomes almost irresistible. The consequence is that you get the wish of the minority given effect to gradually, and tae Government put into a wholly false position. That was the position in which the Government was placed for a long time in Cyprus.
If you are to set up any form of representative institutions in Palestine I suggest that the burden of defending the minority must not be thrown on the shoulders of the Government exclusively. The constitution should have its own inherent check to protect the minority. It was from that point of view that the right hon. Member the leader of the Liberal party (Sir A. Sinclair) made the by no means unreasonable proposition that each community should have equal representation. The essence of the mandate is the equal right of the two communities in the country; the right of the Jew to go to his national home as freely as the right of the Arab to stay in his national home. Anything which makes it possible for the Arab to prevent the Jew going into Palestine is as intolerable from the point of view of the Mandate as anything which would make it possible for the Jew to expel the Arab. It is true that if you have equality it must be permanent, and the Jews must recognise clearly that if they get equality to-day they cannot claim more than equality when they become a majority in the country. But on the principle of the equal rights of the two communities it would be only right to put them in an equal position in the legislature.
There is an alternative, which I should like to suggest to the Colonial Secretary, to an actual equality of representation, and that is to make provision in the Standing Orders of whatever representative assembly is set up that no vote shall be a valid vote unless it has secured the concurrence of a majority of members of each section. That would have the same effect, and after a little while neither section would attempt to introduce measures deliberately intended to harass or prejudice the other, and there might be some hope of the two sections gradually learning to work together on matters of common interest. There is another alter-


native which may be well worth exploring. In these days when we hear so much about functional representation in many parts of the world, would it be altogether absurd to try whether the first essay towards a representative institution should not be based on those economic interests in which Arab and Jew naturally come together—the citrus growers as citrus growers, cereal cultivators, dairy farmers, industrialists? There is much greater hope of an assembly on that basis, discussing essential economic problems, building up a common Palestinian patriotism and becoming an assembly into which both Jew and Arab will enter with the one object of making Palestine a success. If the Colonial Secretary has determined to go ahead now with some measure of a representative institution, I warmly support the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland that he should at any rate send out a commission—and its investigations need not take long—to inquire what would be the best method of carrying out the desire to create a representative institution without detriment to the policy of the Mandate to which we are committed.
I feel that in all this business there has been a certain lack of imagination; more than that, a certain lack of clear purpose. Do we really mean to carry through the policy of the Mandate to a successful conclusion, or not? I believe that if we do that policy will innure to the happiness of the Arab and the Jew, and all that has happened in these years confirms that. When that policy was initiated it was a pleat experiment. I remember the debates well—Lord Balfour with his immense authority behind him; against him Lord Curzon, a far greater authority on the East, who said that the proposition was impossible and fantastic; and Mr. Edwin Montagu, himself a Jew, protesting, from the point of view of Jewry, against it. Yet speech after speech this afternoon has shown not only what an immense thing this has been to the Jewish world, but what it has brought in happiness, comfort, wealth and education to the Arab population of Palestine.
To-day these arguments, advanced tentatively and in uncertainty 15 years ago, are confirmed by abundant experience. On top of them we have two additional arguments. In these days when defence problems are uppermost in our minds, we cannot forget the immense

importance of Palestine as the effective air centre of the British Imperial system, not only from the point of view of protecting the Suez Canal and of guarding the Eastern Mediterranean, but from the point of view of our communications with India and the East. Palestine offers the only outlet to the Mediterranean for oil supplies under British control. Who knows whether we shall have access to American supplies in future? The importance of Haifa, both as an oil base and as a general naval base, more secure than Malta would be in certain circumstances, is very great. If we had in Palestine a prospering and developing community, bound to this country by ties of gratitude, influenced by the fact that we have made an ancient dream come true, the effect would surely be well worth keeping in mind.
There is one other reason that has been touched on by more than one speaker, notably by the right hon. Member for Epping, and that is the appalling suffering of the hapless Jewish people in Germany. I need not labour that point now. There is no question of our interfering in the internal affairs of Germany. I would not let our foreign policy be deflected in any way by consideration of these things which I deplore. But I do say that if we can help we should. Even then I would say that we were not entitled to help the suffering Jews of Germany if doing so would inflict injustice on any community for which we are responsible, as we are responsible for the Arabs.
When the whole course of the last 15 years has proved that the development of the Jewish community in Palestine has meant prosperity to the Arabs, surely we ought not to allow mere concession to political agitation by a small minority of the Arabs in Palestine to weigh against the chance of listening to the cry of agony and despair of hundreds of thousands of suffering workmen deprived of all chance of earning their daily bread, and of cultured men and women treated as lepers and outcasts. Surely at this particular moment every consideration that has justified the policy of the Mandate in the past justifies our carrying it out wholeheartedly at this moment, and not committing ourselves to any step which, in whatever degree, would defeat the successful carrying out of the policy to which we are pledged.

7.16 p.m.

Mr. SILVERMAN: I apologise for troubling the House at so late a stage in the Debate which one cannot help feeling has run its course, but the House will, perhaps, not think it unfitting that there should be, if only for a few moments in this Debate, some remarks from, at any rate, one Jewish Member. Perhaps the House will permit me, speaking as a Jew, to say that one could not listen to this Debate and to the sympathy which has been expressed so equally and sincerely by everyone who has taken part in it, no matter what view he took on the particular point at issue, without feeling a certain emotion and gratitude. I think it fair and right to say that on that side, and on many other sides also, this Debate will go out to the Jewish people of the world, and in particular to some portions of it, as a gleam of light and hope in a distracted and rather tragic world.
I would not, however, invite the House to dwell too much upon the tragedy of the position of the Jewish people in so many parts of the world to-day. I do not think "tragedy" is the right word. In its long history the Jewish people has known many persecutions and many persecutors. Some of them were Empires now long past and forgotten. The Jewish people have survived many moments as tragic as the present, and those of us who belong to that race believe that it will survive this one as well. Perhaps the true tragedy in the situation is not that of the Jews, but is the tragedy of a great people, for so long foremost in the arts of culture and of civilisation, rattled back in two or three short years into primitive barbarity. It is their tragedy rather than ours which the world should deplore to-day.
I feel that on this subject it would not be fitting for me to be too highly controversial. There are certain elements in the situation which are common ground. Everyone knows that the work being done in co-operation between this nation and the Jews in Palestine under the Mandate must be carried on not merely without prejudice to the rights of the existing Arab population in Palestine, but to its benefit. I feel sure that those who are in charge of the Jewish experiments in Palestine will remember too keenly the persecutions to which their own race has been subjected throughout

so many centuries, to wish at any moment to subject any other race to any kind of persecution or any treatment which would be in any way prejudicial to its interests. I recognise the tributes that have been paid from so many parts of the House not merely to the devotion and sacrifice which have gone to make the success of the Zionist experiments in Palestine, but to the fact that no single step has been taken in Palestine which has added to the civilisation of that country and advanced it on the road of civilisation which has not at the same time helped to raise the status of the whole native population. It is probably for that reason as much as for any other that the history of Palestine since the Mandate has been a happier one than that of any other Near Eastern land.
There is one thing which goes almost without saying. Some day there must be representative institutions in Palestine. It would not be possible to continue developing Palestine in this way and not be prejudicial in some manner to the rights of others unless at some stage steps were taken to ensure that every inhabitant and every category of inhabitant of Palestine should have an equal voice in the Government of that land. I think that is common ground. But what is not common ground is the question of the right moment. We suggest with the utmost respect to the Colonial Secretary that, whenever that moment may be, it is most decidedly not now. Surely it would be wrong, at a moment when the experiment which is being made is beginning to flourish and to have success, when it is beginning to serve the needs for which it was created, and when the demands upon it are greater than they have ever been, to interfere with the machinery. Now is not the moment to introduce new circumstances which cannot help that side of the experiment along.
I would like to say, with respect, that the Colonial Secretary was right to refer so much to the advice and the opinion of the High Commissioner, and I would like to recall the eloquent tribute which he paid, and which all of us would willingly pay, to the High Commissioner. But the Colonial Secretary appeared to me—and I hardly think I could have been mistaken—when giving the reasons


which the High Commissioner had advanced for the advice which he had tendered to His Majesty's Government, to confine himself to the question of pledges and the redemption of pledges. I did not hear one word in the Colonial Secretary's references to the High Commissioner which seemed to indicate that the High Commissioner was recommending these proposals and their carrying out at this moment on their merits. The argument quoted from the High Commissioner was the argument that "We have said we would, and therefore we must." So far as I understood the Colonial Secretary, the question has never been that we must have this Legislative Council, and we must have it now, because it is necessary in the interests of the population on its merits and for its own sake. Has the Commissioner ever said that? Or is it merely the High Commissioner's feeling—a feeling which we all share—that when a pledge has been given it ought to be redeemed? I think the questions of the pledge that was given, the time and the manner, and the question of what things ought to take place before a Legislative Council is set up, have been sufficiently dealt with in the Debate and need no reiteration from me. But I think the House must have been struck in that part of the Colonial Secretary's speech by the fact that the argument advanced by the High Commissioner was not based on the merits of the proposal but derived from pledges which have been given.
There is one other matter to which I would like to refer. In dealing with the question of parity of representation in the Legislative Council, the Colonial Secretary gave the House the comparative figures of the Jewish population and the Arab population in Palestine, and he said that on those figures it would obviously be unreasonable and inequitable to have equal representation in numbers in the Legislative Council to represent communities whose numbers were so disproportionate. I venture to say that no one would disagree with that, for it would obviously be unreasonable and inequitable in a Legislative Council elected on democratic principles that there should be equal representation of unequal elements. Nevertheless, I am sure the Colonial Secretary must have felt the almost overwhelming

weight of the arguments which showed how inequitable and how unreasonable it would be if the numbers in the Legislative Council were not equal, for reasons which have nothing to do with the proportion of Jews to Arabs in Palestine.
I suggest to the Colonial Secretary in all sincerity that the argument which he used proves that the time is premature for setting up this Legislative Council. If it be true—and I think the arguments are overwhelming on both sides—that it would be just as inequitable and unreasonable to have equal membership of the council as between Jews and Arabs as it would be to have equal numbers of representatives of Jews and Arabs on the Legislative Council—if the position is that to do one thing is to be obviously inequitable, and to do the opposite thing is also to be obviously inequitable—surely there could not possible be a more convincing demonstration of the fact that it is premature to attempt to do anything at all, and that it would be much wiser to allow the experiment to proceed, to allow to continue the forces that are now working successfully and without hardship or injustice to anybody, and to await the time when some part of the ultimate object of the experiment is achieved, when there is something much more like equality of numbers in Palestine and when there is the possibility of it being obviously equitable and reasonable to have equal representation, or something near it. Some day there will have to be representative Government, but the necessary conditions do not exist now.
I do not wish to be controversial, and perhaps I have been betrayed into being more controversial than I intended, but I wished to bring those points to the notice of the Colonial Secretary.
I would suggest to him that there is one other factor which has perhaps not been taken into account. Is it enough when you are considering the question of a legislative council to confine your attention to the number of Jews and of Arabs in Palestine? Are there not many Jews outside Palestine with a stake in this experiment and something more than a financial stake? The question has been raised here of Jewish capital. The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is not the capital of a few wealthy men. It consists of the pennies, the sixpences and the shillings of the poorest Jewish people


all over the world, and it has provided a common fund, without which progress in Palestine would not have been possible. Have those people no interest in this experiment when their whole future may depend on the creation of conditions in Palestine which will enable them to live there under decent and dignified conditions? That is a point which may have been forgotten and I recommend it to the right hon. Gentleman's attention when he is considering again, if he does consider again, the question of whether this proposal is equitable or not. Once again, I would say how deep is the impression which will be produced and how great are the hopes which will be created among Jews all over the world by the sympathetic spirit in which the House to-day has approached this question.

7.32 p.m.

Mr. MARCUS SAMUEL: After this Debate the Arab population in Palestine should have no doubts as to the view of the British House of Commons on this proposal for a. legislative council. It is well to concede at the outset that the British people have shouldered no easy task in endeavouring to carry out the letter and the spirit of the Balfour Declaration. To weld into one political unit two peoples of different cultures is a task which only a nation skilled in the making of constitutions would dare to attempt. We know that there have been pouring into Palestine during the last few years, young people inspired by a determination to build up a thriving homeland by the sweat of their brows, and not animated by the commercial spirit which we see to-day in many places. I see nothing impossible in the idea of collaboration between such people and the native population. I submit that the negotiations preliminary to the final draft of the new Constitution, whenever it may be decided upon, will have to be conducted in the most favourable circumstances. To conduct them in Palestine where the atmosphere is charged with remembrances of past disputes would, in my opinion, be unwise and I suggest that if London has been found the best meeting place in which to try to straighten out the European tangle, so it should be the venue for a conference between leading Arabs and Jews. We have already experienced the virtue of such a course

for the difficult communal problems in the case of India would not have been satisfactorily dealt with had it not been for the Round Table Conference which took place before India's Constitution was remodelled. Speaking as an Englishman and as a man of peace I commend that suggestion to the powers that be.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: One thing has emerged from the Debates on this subject both here and in another place. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister has found but one solitary friend for this proposal. From all sides there has been emphatic opposition to the establishment of a Legislative Council in Palestine. Rightly or wrongly, the proposed council is regarded by the Jewish community as untimely, dangerous and irreconcilable with the underlying purposes of the Mandate. Nothing that the right hon. Gentleman has said has weakened that hostility to the proposals. Jewish feeling not only in Palestine and in this country, but throughout the world, is hostile to this premature movement which may disturb the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Palestine and have a decided effect on the project for the establishment of a Jewish national home. The proposed council might or might not interfere with the economic progress which has so far been made, but I am sure the Minister would do everything and anything to prevent any unfortunate incident which was calculated to affect adversely the economic and social achievements of 12 remarkable years.
I hope he will appreciate, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle - under - Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) said, that we speak without hostility to the great Arab population in Palestine. Nor do we condemn the High Commissioner for having carried out the mandate given to him by his Government. Indeed the High Commissioner has won the golden opinions of all sections of the community for what he has done during the past five years. He is entitled to the thanks of those who are interested in this question in all parts of the world. Rather do we take the view that the interests of Arabs and Jews are so closely bound, that, while they are working in harmony—with the possible exception of a few hardened disturbers of the peace at the top—it would be folly to throw an apple of discord in their midst.
All those who have been in Palestine recently have found many examples of the value of Jewish and Arab co-operation. In a very short visit which I made I found that Arabs, high and low, were benefiting from the presence of the Jewish population. But there is a genuine fear that the present development may be arrested, and the great constructive efforts which are being made, endangered, and the scheme of the national home, itself, threatened. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has given certain guarantees to-day with regard to the powers of the Legislative Council, if it is established. It seems to me, however, that the intention of the right hon. Gentleman may be one thing and the natural normal development of the assembly may prove to be another. As has been pointed out by one of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessors at the Colonial Office, things do not always work out as a Minister would desire, and the fears which have been expressed on this point in this country and elsewhere may not be without foundation.
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would be second to none in his appreciation of what has been done by the Jews in Palestine, in the last 12 years. Man power and scientific and technical knowledge have been put into the rebuilding of Palestine. Rarely in the history of the world have human beings shown such faith and devotion or thrown themselves into a task so wholeheartedly as the Jews in Palestine. In agriculture, housing, education, the establishment of social institutions they have advanced at an amazing rate, and I am sure that, even in attempting to fulfil a provisional promise, none of us would desire to do anything that would disturb the marvellous progress that is being made. It is not only a question of the Jews now resident in Palestine. There is a Jewish national fund, contributed to by residents of over 40 countries. The millions of pounds which they have put up have made it possible to purchase land, to drain it, and irrigate it and to bring agriculture and citriculture to the highest state of efficiency. There is also a foundation fund of world-wide significance and through the agency of these two funds, one for the purchase and preparation of land for cultivation and the other for the provision of houses, equipment, stock and

fertilisers there is a real world influence at work in Palestine. By no stretch of imagination can one accept the Minister's figures as representing the last word in logic on this question. After all, there are greater influences than the existing population in Palestine. While no one section of the community ought to be superseded for the benefit of another, yet all sorts of factors have to be considered before we can accept the figures which have been submitted.
I base what I am saying upon the implied terms of the Mandate, namely, that a national home is to be established and migration continued, so that the land can be cultivated and settlers enabled to obtain a livelihood on smaller areas than hitherto, by the use of modern methods. I submit, therefore, that the figures which have been quoted are scarcely consistent with the original intention of the Mandate. Figures have been given here today which scarcely need repetition, but it will not be out of place to recall one or two things to illustrate the progress that has been made over a comparatively short space of time. The Minister was the first to admit that this progress had been continuous, and he referred to the Government surplus of £6,200,000. The exports for 1922 were something over £1,000,000, and by 1935 they were nearly £4,250,000. The cases of oranges exported in 1922 were 1,234,000, while by 1934-5 the number had increased to over 7,250,000, and we were informed last year that it was not at all beyond the bounds of possibility that the number of cases that would be available for export before 1937 would be round about 15,000,000.
With regard to the question of the effect upon the Arab population of the presence of the Jews, I want to give one figure to show that the presence of the Jews has been of material value to the Arabs, whether landowners or workmen, and the skill which they have brought to bear in what they have attempted to do has been so remarkable that the Arab landowners have taken advantage of the new principles adopted. In 1924 orange lands in the hands of Arabs were 22,000 metric kilometres, and by 1934 they were growing oranges over 116,000 metric kilometres. Therefore, this progress has been more or less wonderful, and despite the Government pledges, which seem to be the only justification which the Minister has for proceeding with


this Measure, I think we oguht to think twice and thrice before proceeding with anything calculated to disturb this wonderful economic progress.
As to the Government pledges, for, after all, the right hon. Gentleman made them his big point to-day, saying that from 1922 every Government of every party or mixed parties had been pledged up to the hilt to establish this Legislative Assembly, what the pledge actually was was in some doubt this afternoon, and I think it would not be out of place if I were to repeat a few of the words uttered by the High Commissioner at the Twenty-seventh Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission. He said in effect that the mandatory power first referred to the future Legislative Council in 1922, and he explained to the Commission the intention of the Government regarding the formation of this Council as soon as the new Local Government Ordinance then in preparation had been brought into working order. So far as the pledge could be given, that was given, and now comes the question as to when this Local Government Ordinance will have got into working order. It seems to me that for this order to have been applied in 1934 and for the machinery to have been just set in motion, it would be a stretch of the imagination to declare that that was really in working order.
What are the facts regarding local government in Palestine? As the Colonial Secretary knows, outside Jerusalem the number of voters on the register is little more than one per cent. To what extent have they been trained in 18 months to cast an intelligent vote for members of the Legislative Assembly? In a southern district, where there are 15 Arab villages with a population of between 1,500 and 3,500, there is one local council in existence. Between 1925 and 1934 there were six fewer local councils than in 1935, so that instead of great progress, it has been a rake's progress, and I do not think the getting into order referred to by the High Commissioner can really be regarded as sufficient for the setting up of a Legislatve Assembly. Might I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention, for I know it is a delicate question for him, to this fact? If he could have said to-day that there shall be a postponement and a Royal Commission, and that further consideration shall be

given to this Legislative Assembly, I am sure he would have desired to be the first Member of this House to have made such a statement. But may I recall the statement in the Chelmsford-Montagu Report, when a thorough examination had taken place with regard to the establishment of local government in another part of the world? They said:
It is by taking part in the management of local affairs that aptitude for handling the problems of self-government will most readily be acquired. The unskilled elector can learn to judge of things afar only by accustoming himself to judge first of things near at hand.
This is why it is of the utmost importance to the constitutional progress of the country that every effort should be made to extend the franchise, to arouse interest in elections, and to develop local committees, so that education in citizenship may as far as possible be extended.
Responsible institutions will not be stably rooted until they become broad based.
I think that is a very sound and logical conclusion. Here, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are starting at the top before we have done anything at the bottom. We are inviting people, for the first time in their lives, to cast votes for representatives on the Assembly who have never had the privilege of casting votes for a local council, and it seems to me the reverse of logic and that no real case has been made out for the Government's proposals at all events from that particular point of view.
I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is satisfied that the Arab leaders are really reconciled to the terms of the Mandate. Personally, I imagine that the Minister himself is not satisfied that they are, and in that case I can only feel that, should an Assembly be established, it will become a debating chamber, despite the prohibition of publicity by one means and another, that will tend to broaden the differences between the Arabs and the Jews and will be calculated, not to help, but to hinder economic and social progress in that country. Reference was made to my colleague Drummond Shiels when he occupied the position of Under-Secretary of State in the Labour Government. This is what he said at the Seventeenth Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission, when referring to the then outlook of the leaders of the Arabs in Palestine:
The wishes of the Arabs as at present expressed could not be carried out within the terms of the Mandate, and unless the


Arabs were prepared to agree to a modus vivendi which took the obligations of the British Government under the Mandate into account, negotiations with a view to self-governing institutions must necessarily be futile.
Therefore, whatever some Members of the Labour Government may have thought, Drummond Shiels was in no doubt about the need for an element, of co-operation and agreement upon the fundamentals of the situation before self-governing institutions could be brought about.
Then I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, assuming that the Legislative Assembly is set up and that the High Commissioner himself is always going to veto items of business to which he and his Government are hostile, is that not going to accentuate the differences between the Arab population and the Government and between the Arabs and the Jews? Is it not inviting trouble instead of hesitating, as it were, with regard to a premature move and allowing things to smooth themselves down? On that basis I think that no case has been made out for the establishment of an Assembly at this date. It is true that, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we are definitely pledged, not only to the Arabs and to the Jews, but also to the League of Nations and, for that matter, to the whole world to set up an Assembly at the appropriate moment. The only point in question is as to what is the appropriate moment. We think that this marvellous modern miracle ought to be allowed to go on for some little time, that co-operation between the Arab and Jewish sections ought to continue, and that the Minister himself ought to do nothing at all that is calculated to arouse passions, to retard economic and social progress, or to prevent that co-operation that is taking place. I can give some instances of which perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is not aware, where real co-operation is taking place. I have seen trades unions working together, Jewish labour doing their best to educate Arab labour, trying to lead them in the way they ought to go, trying to breed happiness and contentment within co-operation, but if some of the Arab leaders can have their way, under a Legislative Assembly they will tend to destroy in the next few years what has been built up during the past 10 or 12 years.
On the question of land purchase, the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Crossley)

referred to the area of land owned by the Jews, and rather implied that as a result of land purchases by the Jews, the Arab population were becoming endangered. Nothing of the kind has taken place. Indeed, from 1930 to 1934 the average purchases annually were about nine square miles, out of a. cultivable area of something over 3,000 square miles, and it seems to me that the figures given at the 27th Session, which I need not quote, give their own reply to the hon. Member for Stretford and to all those who seem to imagine that Jews are just grabbing up all the land upon which they can lay hands and turning the Arabs on to the street, without giving them a chance to earn their own livelihood on land of their own or indeed on land belonging to anyone else. Those are not the facts, and they are as remote from the facts as they well can be. When one realises the efforts that have been made to make the land more productive than was the case in the past, the amount of land that has been put to use, and the use to which it has been put, one sees that it has been a real help, not only to the Jewish population, but to the Arab population too.
I have seen myself land in the Huleh where 30 odd manufacturers, doctors, and dentists who were turned out of Germany are making a livelihood on one and a quarter acres of land each, and enjoying themselves in the process. After all, with their wonderful research department, their technical institutes, their demonstration farms, their modern implements, fertilisers, irrigation, and so on, the average Jews applying modern methods can eke out a far better existence on a small area of land than the ancient Arabs with their donkeys, oxen, or camels, could get out of a very large area of land. It seems to me, therefore, that the area of land in the Huleh Basin is a death-trap for any who attempt to live there. That concession has been handed over, but a large proportion of the land is left, or will be left, for use by the Arab population. It is real co-operation that is taking place, the sort of thing that ought to have been done hundreds of years ago. However, the point is that great and powerful progress has been made. This is to the credit not only of those abroad who have contributed to the various Jewish funds,


but it is to the credit of those residents within Palestine who have made arrangements for the new immigrants, and to the new immigrants who have entered Palestine, who have been so devoted and so loyal that they have performed really a modern agricultural and vitricultural miracle.
It will be in the interest of Palestine, in the interest of the Jewish population, in the interest of this country and in the interest of good government if the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) could be adopted to-day, and a legislative assembly be set up as and when local government development has really taken place. Give the people there some education. Give them an idea of how to cast an independent vote. Let them understand who are their friends and who are their enemies, and then I am convinced that either this Ministry or any Ministry could give them a legislative assembly which would be a real one instead of a. sham, a real assembly instead of a debating chamber, and it will redound to the credit of this country and its form of government.

8.2 p.m.

Major PROCTER: I wish to add one or two words to what has already been said, and to ask the Secretary for the Colonies if even at this late hour he will not consider the postponing of this Act which is proposed to be done by this House. His position, as I understand it, is this: He said that we have promised to make Palestine a national home for the Jews, and not only for the Jews who are resident in Palestine but for the Jews who live throughout the world. The promise of the national home was made to the world of Jewry, and he now thinks that the time has come when the Government should carry out its last promise, namely, to get a legislative council in which Arabs and Jews will take part. I believe that the Government in rushing this matter with undue haste are making a grave mistake. There is no period in the history of the world when the Jews have passed through so much tribulation and so much persecution, and if this country takes a step which I understand, which I sincerely believe will be regarded by the Jews throughout the world as a blow against Jewish interests,

they will at once be associated with the oppressor in other lands. We shall become associated, at least in thought, with the idea that we would rather placate the Arab, even if we prevented what in my opinion is the greatest social experiment that has taken place in the world. No other country, not even Russia with its millions, has done so much in so short a time.
The Jews have taker the desert that was Arab and life has burst forth in a myriad forms. They have gone to the land—it is the greatest miracle in the world to see the Jewish people working on the land. In other lands they have been denied access to the land, they have not been allowed to learn a trade, but have been forced to use their brains. Now we see young men and young women with the ideal in their hearts to make this land ready for those who are persecuted, and for the Jews who are to come after them in the world; and for this great country, which is regarded by the Jews all over the world as being just and fair to them, to take this step, and to make it appear as if Arab opinion was of greater value to this Empire and this Government, is in my opinion making a great mistake. It is most important that whatever the Government do we should make Palestine a country full of people who are friendly towards this country. It is of immense strategical importance to this country. As to the danger to India in the event of anything happening to the Suez Canal, it would be possible for us to have a line to India through Haifa Bay to Suez and to take ship on the other side.
It has been pointed out, and rightly, that the Jew going to Palestine has made tremendous advantages for the Arabs themselves. Someone has spoken this afternoon about the dispossessed Arabs. The Jew has purchased Palestine not acre by acre but inch by inch at fabulous prices, uneconomic prices. The only reason for that is that they have paid this in order to satisfy the Arab and to make it possible at least for some of the oppressed people to find a home in that land. The subject has been referred to already. I want to ask the Colonial Secretary whether in his own mind he is quite satisfied—I am speaking of the Arabs—that they are quite ready? They are the men whom the legislature is designed to benefit. I do not mean the


Effendi class, who live in Egypt and get their living out of the poor Arab. I do not mean that class of Arab. They, it seems to me, are the political agitators for the legislative council. It is not the poor people. The agitation against the Jew has not come from the poor people in the first instance; it has been an inspired, political agitation, using the Arab as an instrument so that political control should go to those absentee landlords who have been a curse to the people of Palestine and who will ruin the experiment if the Government gives them the opportunity so to do.
The pledge regarding the legislative council was that, so far as the High Commissioner is concerned, first of all there would come education by means of local government. Has that pledge been carried out? In Ceylon we have seen what happens by putting government into the hands of those who are unqualified to carry it out, and this Government has had to take action to veto an act of the legislative council in so far as certain commodities manufactured in this country are concerned. But in this instance the Government is not playing with Palestine; it is playing with a movement that lies deep in human hearts. The Jews are determined to make a success of this trust which has been committed to their care. They are afraid, and rightly afraid, that the action now being taken will ruin all that they have done and make it impossible for them to carry out what they hope to do in the future. Surely in placing the Jew under the Arab by setting up this Council, which is about to be done, are you not, for the first time in Palestine, putting the Jew in an inferior position, and is not that the position of the Jew in the persecuted countries? True, we are not applying the thumbscrew and the rack. We are not persecuting in that sense, but we are crushing this ideal that beats in the Jewish heart, that makes them sacrifice their millions—every Jewish home has its little box receiving its pennies—to build up for prosperity the home which was promised by this country.
Why not delay the action five or 10 years to give the experiment a chance? Then with a more balanced population, a more educated Arab population, with a more deeply appreciative idea of the value of the Jews in Palestine we can go forward and say, "Now you

are ready for it; carry on the work we have begun."

INDIA (BRITISH TROOPS).

8.12 p.m.

Sir EDWARD GRIGG: I rise to call attention to a matter which concerns the relations of this country with India rather than the relations of this country with Palestine. But before the House turns finally from the subject of Palestine I should like to record my strong agreement with the majority of those who have contributed to the discussion this afternoon, and to express the hope to the right hon. Gentleman—who I see has just left the House—that he will find it possible to reconsider the policy, obviously the cause of such great anxiety in all quarters of the House of Commons and the other place.
The point I wish to raise is the grant-in-aid paid by this country, the sum of £1,500,000 paid by this country in aid of the military expenditure drawn from Indian revenue. This grant-in-aid, as the Estimates explain, is based on the award of a tribunal which reported in 1933, and it is by no means the only addition to our Estimates which has lately also arisen out of that contribution. The Indian contribution to our own Estimates, the contribution to meet the training of officers and men in this country, has been reduced during the period from £1,400,000 to £1,200,000. This country meets the cost of the Indian battalion which is stationed in Hong Kong. That is another £70,000 on our Estimates.
I am very glad to see in these Estimates a grant of £50,000 in relief of the sufferers by the earthquake at Quetta. I mention these things in order to make it clear that this House is not behaving ungenerously towards India at the present time. No one can say that, and if I question the merits of this particular Vote it is certainly not in any niggling spirit so far as India is concerned. What are the reasons given for this grant-in-aid? They are to be found on page 98 of the Civil Estimates. The first of them is
the availability of the Army in India for use in an emergency in the East.
That was the statement made by the tribunal which reported in 1933. I am doubtful whether that view could have been well sustained even in 1933, and a great deal has happened in India and in the world since 1933. For one thing, the


India Act is now on the Statute Book and the whole policy enshrined in that Act is based on our guarantee of law and order for India. I do not think that anybody would question that this placed a greater responsibility upon the British forces in India, and that if it ever became necessary to remove regular troops from India they would have to be replaced by Territorial battalions or some equivalent. I believe that in the War Indian troops were replaced by Territorials, and I very much doubt whether the case can be sustained that British troops kept in India are likely to be available in any other part of the East, let alone any other part of the world.
The second reason given for this grant-in-aid is even more disappointing. It is "the value of India as a training ground for British troops."
I cannot believe that that argument was ever accepted by the War Office. I should think it must have been repudiated at the outset by the War Office. The needs of internal security in India to which a large proportion of our troops there are applied, prevent adequate training because of the cost. I know of one division the brigades of which are each 600 miles apart, and the divisional training of these troops, including exercises which are valuable from our point of view, are impossible. I do not think that that division has come together at any time during the last few years, and to talk of India as a training ground for troops which are scattered like that in little pockets for the sake of internal security is to put forward a ground of payment by this country to India which is unsubstantiated.
Even if it were true that India is a training ground, the kind of training that troops receive in India is not likely to be of much use for troops which are to be used in European conditions. The conditions are changing so fast. If we are to get an expeditionary force in this country—and that is to be our contribution to the system of collective security in Europe, the Secretary of State told us—then we must have specially equipped and trained troops, because that is the kind of preparation which is being made in other countries. The training that such troops receive in India bears little relation to the training they would require if they were to be useful as an

expeditionary force to be used in Europe. Not only that, but under the award of the tribunal this country pays for all troops in the Reserve. These payments are calculated not only on Colour service but on Reserve service. Therefore, we pay for all these troops on Reserve even if their whole training has been in India. I do not think that anyone can argue that troops whose whole training has been done in India arc of use as Reserves for an expeditionary force to be used in Europe under present conditions.
If we are to have an expeditionary force in this country for use if necessity arises in Europe, we shall have to recognise that the close interdependence which has been established for 60 years between our Army system in this country and the organisation of the Army in India is no longer workable and will have to be reconsidered. That. must raise the question of Army organisation in India, and it must, I think, persuade the House that it is entitled to some report, some explanation of the way our troops are used in India. It is years since this House has been told anything about Army organisation in India, despite the fact that our manhood goes out there in great numbers every year and spends an important part of its youth there. This House ought to know about the organisation of the Army in India, but I do not believe that it is told anything. If we provide the men, as we do, some account of the way in which they are used seems to be due to us. I trust that some occasion will be found, if possible on the India Office Vote or some similar occasion, when an account can after this long interval be given to the House of the way in which the Army in India is organised for the different purposes for which we maintain it. It is common knowledge now that our troops do not like going to India. The dislike is particularly marked in other ranks, but the service is not pop liar in any part of the British Army. I think that one of the reasons is unquestionably that the accommodation for all ranks in India is so bad.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain Bourne): I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the maintenance of the Army in India is paid for from Indian revenues and not out of any moneys in the Consolidated Fund.

Sir E. GRIGG: The Vote we are discussing is a contribution towards the maintenance of the Army in India.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: It is a contribution for certain specific purposes, and so long as the hon. Member keeps to those he is in order. The Indian Budget no longer comes before the House, and we cannot discuss those matters which would have been in order if it had now done so.

Sir E. GRIGG: The purposes to which this Vote is to be used are not specified, and the House has no information as to the way in which the money is used except in one particular. We know that £130,000 of it goes to pay part of the cost of transport in India. Otherwise, out of the sum of £1,500,000 we do not know how the funds are expended, and I think we are entitled to information. I go further and say that if we make this considerable grant-in-aid to the maintenance of the Army in India, we are entitled to ask that some at least should be used to improve the accommodation of the Army in India. After all, we only ask India to provide for internal security and for local aggression—what is called minor danger. We ourselves guarantee India against any major danger, that is, attack by any great Power. It is not too much to ask, inasmuch as this House makes this contribution for the maintenance of the Army in India, that British soldiers in India should be properly looked after.

8.23 p.m.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Butler): I think it would be for the convenience of the House if I were to reply to the points raised by the hon. Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg). The hon. Member asked why a contribution of £1,500,000 appears upon the Civil Estimates and is allocated for the reasons described on page 98 of the Estimate for the purposes of the defence of India. The hon. Gentleman inquired in particular into two reasons which were given by the Garran Tribunal which reported in 1933 for saying that a contribution should be made to Indian revenues for the purposes of defence. I may remind the House that this Garran tribunal had very distinguished personnel. Besides its chairman, after whom the tribunal was called, there were Lord Dunedin and Lord Tomlin, the then Chief Justice of the High Court at Allahabad

and the Chief Justice of the High Court at Lahore. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare), then Secretary of State, told the House in 1934, this tribunal considered the subject, which had been a vexed question for very many years and had for a long time led to controversy, and decided, as the hon. Member has told us, that the availability of the Army in India for use in an emergency in the East and the value of India as a training ground for British troops constituted valid reasons for making a contribution to India to aid her in the cost of her defence. The majority agreed upon a contribution. I would remind the House that this does not mean that a minority of the members were not in favour of contribution. The minority were the Indian members, and they found broader grounds than these more limited grounds for a contribution being made. A contribution was later agreed to by the then Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the amount was fixed at £1,500,000.

Sir E. GRIGG: The hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware that on one of the main recommendations of the Committee the majority consisted of the chairman and the two Indian judges and that the two British judges were in a minority.

Mr. BUTLER: I say that the two Indian members found broader grounds for saying the contribution should be granted. I think, therefore, the House would be wrong were it to consider that it was justified in discarding the findings of so important and weighty a tribunal after the scheme which it has suggested has been in operation for about two years. As I have mentioned; the personnel of the tribunal was a very distinguished one. It considered at great length the cases of the different departments concerned and heard counsel for all those Departments, and then issued this Report, Command Paper 4473, which sums up its conclusions. The hon. Member is, of course, well entitled to his point of view, but the House ought to remember that this distinguished tribunal came down definitely in favour of a contribution, and I should strongly advise the House to be impressed by the findings of so distinguished a tribunal which took evidence over so considerable a period.
However, I do not want to answer my hon. Friend by a mere reference to the


weight of this tribunal as against his own experience, and I would therefore like to take up the different points which he raised. He said that he did not consider the first reason given, that there was in India an emergency force ready to take the field, to be a valid one. He asked whether, in fact, the Army in India, constituted of Indian and British units, could ever spare any proportion of its effectives to go overseas and to take part in any action or to render any service in what could be regarded as an emergency. Assistance has been given by Indian troops on many occasions in the past, from as early a date as 1856. There have been some dozen or more occasions when, for various reasons, Indian troops have willingly gone overseas. The most recent occasion was when Indian troops went to Shanghai. The understanding has been that assistance has been given in the past only if the external and internal situation of India allowed the troops to be spared. India has not failed in the past, and I see no reason, providing the internal and external situation allows the troops to be spared, why she should fail in the future. As regards the present circumstances, about which a right hon. Gentleman opposite interjected a remark, the House may rest assured that in the present emergency India has been willing to render the same service as she has rendered in the past. In particular, a certain force has been sent to Aden, and a company, as reported in the Press, was sent to Addis Ababa as a guard for the British Legation there. Therefore, looking to past history and to the present emergency, it has been possible for India, consistent with the undertaking as to the external and internal situation of India allowing it, to send troops abroad for specific purposes. The tribunal considered this matter most carefully, and I see no reason why the Government should alter the decision that was come to.
On the question whether India really forms a training ground for active service, the hon. Member said divisions in India did not come together, that they were scattered about and, in fact, gave the impression that the Army in India was a somewhat scattered force which did not provide a suitable training ground for emergencies or for the use

of troops as an expeditionary force. I am advised, and I think that in my modest experience I have been able to see that it is so, than, India provides one of the best training grounds possible for the British Army. I think all our military experts would be agreed that that was so. It gives frequent opportunities for active service in minor affairs, and all ranks gain the greatest experience of the Army on what is more or less the equivalent of a war footing. Indeed, the battalions in India may be regarded as active service battalions. India maintains a full complement of educational and instructional establishments, which are open to all ranks, keep the troops efficient, and give every opportunity to the young soldier going out to India.
I cannot accept the hon. Member's view that the divisions in India are not closely in touch with each other. I should say that the Army in India is to-day at as high a level as it has ever been, that the units are as closely in touch with each other as one would expect in a modern army, and that army exercises are carried out in the way the House would expect a modern army to carry them out. The recent Mohmand operations were carried out with extreme efficiency and illustrate that the Army in India, both in its equipment, its adequacy and, I would say, in its humanity, is as efficient an instrument as hon. Members could hope to find. Hon. Members will recall that a programme for the re-oraganisation, mechanisation and re-equipment of the Army and Royal Air Force in India was sanctioned in 1928, and has been gradually put into force ever since, so that they will realise that the Army in India is receiving all the advantages of modern invention. There are still about two crore remaining of the original 10-crore programme started in 1928, and the main reasons for the total sum of money not having been spent are partly the economic crisis and partly the face that the Army in India is waiting, I think very wisely to find the latest forms of equipment and the latest experience of the West to add to their own equipment, and they have a certain sum of money still to spend on this important programme.
I believe that the duties which the Army in India carried out hitherto, of


internal security, and will still carry out under the new Constitution, to which the hon. Member referred, have been and will be of first-class value. Perhaps the hon. Member is right that this is not the occasion to go in great detail into the condition and position of the Army in India, or in greater detail into the happiness and the contentment of British troops. I think Mr. Deputy-Speaker would rule that that would not be in order. In final reply to the hon. Gentleman I would say that I hope my words have shown him that the Army in India is an efficient force at the present moment. I would assure him that every effort is being made to make the life of British troops as agreeable as possible. I would just give an instance, which is that ventilating in the Plains is now carried out by electricity, which is a great improvement upon the old days about which Kipling-used to write. I only add that to show that the money that the House puts aside, in accordance with the recommendations of the Government and the tribunal, is well worth while, and that the availability of the Army and the availability of India for use as a training ground for British troops are very valid reasons for consideration in this House. I am very glad to have had an opportunity of assuring the hon. Gentleman that the Army in India is an efficient force.

CABINET MINISTERS (HOUSE OF LORDS).

9.37 p.m.

Mr. TINKER: I want to bring the Debate back to our own country. We have been debating the Constitution of Palestine; I want to deal with our Constitution. I put a question to the Prime Minister the other day asking whether it was his intention to continue to keep two of the three Defence Service Ministers in the House of Lords, and the Prime Minister's reply was, "For the present, yes." Later I attempted to raise the question of the Navy, but Mr. Speaker quite rightly held that I was out of order. It was not a matter which could be dealt with then, but might be dealt with on the Consolidated Fund Bill. I am now trying to get from the representative of the Government how far they intend to go in reference to Cabinet representation in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords.
There are now 22 Cabinet Ministers. One has just been added, the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence. Five of those are in the House of Lords—the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Privy Seal, the Secretary of State for India, the Secretary of State for Air, and the First Lord of the Admiralty. I recognise that there will have to be some representative in the Lords, and I take no objection, while the system is as it is, to the Lord Chancellor being there. Up to the moment I have never known a Lord Chancellor to occupy a seat in the House of Commons. They can have him. I do not mind if he has a seat in the House of Lords. They may also have the Lord Privy Seal, but when I come to what I call the active service Ministers, their place, I think, is in the House of Commons. They ought to be here to meet the charges and criticisms urged against the Departments. I say this without any reflection upon their understudies, but they ought to be here to meet all that is said. We should feel more assurance when we heard them give their statements on questions in the House of Commons.
I am not the only one to complain about this. In the Debate on 16th March, on the Navy Vote, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) made a strong complaint, so strong that I was expecting him to move the Adjournment of the House. I will quote his words to show the feeling of the Liberal party on this matter:
I should like in the first place to register, for the third time since this Parliament met, my protest at the absence from this House of the First Lord of the Admiralty, when Estimates, so large as these and so greatly increased since last year, are before us. I think that a great spending Department bringing before us these great Estimates should be represented by its chief. There is in these Estimates an increase of £10,000,000, following upon an increase last year, if you include the Supplementary Estimates, of £8,000,000, arid I think the First Lord ought to be here to answer for these increases."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1936; col. 87, Vol. 310.]
I quite agree with that. I interrupted the right hon. Gentleman to ask him whether he meant that there ought to be no Cabinet Ministers in the House of Lords, but he did not agree with that, but he did say that the heads of the chief spending Departments should be in


the House of Commons. It was a speech which ought to be noted by everyone.
The next day, on the Air Estimates, the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) had something to say about the chief representative of the Air Department not being here. He said:
When we have this enormous programme before us, of vital importance to the country and with a vast expenditure, we feel that it is only right that the Secretary of State should be here to answer personally for his Department."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1936; col. 288, Vol. 310.]
Complaints were made, after the reply by the representatives of the Ministry, that they had touched upon the point too lightly. They did not meet the charge, but it was not their position to do that, and one can understand. Had they agreed with the criticism it might have been said that they were canvassing for the job of chief, and it was better for them to say nothing at all. What is the intention of the Government or of the Prime Minister in matters of this kind? Is it that, at any time they decide to make or promote one of the heads of the Service Departments, he is to continue as a Cabinet Minister even though he is removed from the House of Commons? That is the question that we have to ask.
Is this practice to be increased? Is there a tendency towards probably one half of the Cabinet occupying seats in the other place? Where is the process to stop? I am raising the question to get some kind of assurance as to what the Government intend to do in the future. Probably the right hon. Gentleman who is to reply in place of the Prime Minister will not be prepared to give me a favourable answer; I do not expect that he will probably the Prime Minister has not told him what he intends to do. But we, as Members of the House of Commons, have a right to raise a protest when we find, as we do now, that two of the heads of the Defence Services are not in the House of Commons. Even though I may not be able to get an explanation on this matter, I desire to make a protest, of which I hope some notice will be taken, so that a feeling may be created that those who are termed the representatives of the people shall not be put on one side by this kind of thing. I am sorry that there are so few of us present here in the House to-night. Were there a better attendance,

I dare say many more Members besides myself would want to ask questions on this point.
I stand, as probably everyone knows, for the House of Commons being the representative Chamber of the people, and I cannot allow it to pass without protest when I find that the Prime Minister of the day is quietly putting into the other House some of the chief Cabinet Ministers. He may not have thought that there would be any protest, but perhaps, now that he knows that we are protesting, he will be careful before he does it in future. As I have said, I might suggest as a compromise that, if some Ministers must be in the other House, the least serviceable and those whom we can best do without should be sent there. I should not object to that, but I certainly take strong objection to the chiefs of Departments being sent to the House of Lords, and I am raising my voice in protest hoping to get some idea of what is intended to be done in the future.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. JAGGER: I agree with the last speaker that we might very well leave the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, as long as there is a House of Lords, but I am very much concerned about the tendency to increase the numbers of members of the Cabinet. A little while ago we had the establishment of a new Minister, who, I think, was generally known as the Minister for Thought, and we thought he was thinking about certain things. We gather that he was thinking about the coordination of the Navy, the Army and the Air Force, and, whether he was thinking about it or not, that co-ordination has taken place, so that we have now another Minister added to the Cabinet. While I am concerned that as many members of the Cabinet as possible should be in the House of Commons and not in the House of Lords, I am also concerned that the amount of patronage should not be unduly increased. I am seriously concerned about this increased, and should be glad if we could have some kind of assurance as to how often new offices are going to be created, and whether there is any limit to the number that can be created.

8.50 p.m.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Simon): As regards the point put in


his last sentence by the hon. Member for Clayton (Mr. Jagger), I think I shall be able to give him some assurance when I remind him that, under the present provisions of the Statute law which has been passed by Parliament, there is a limit to the number of Ministers without Portfolio that can be appointed. The number is three, and we may, think, be very certain that any attempt to increase the strictly limited list of Ministers, all of whom draw salaries, will always be narrowly examined by the House of Commons as a whole, because not only is it necessary for the House of Commons to vote their salaries, but, if any attempt were made to create a new office of profit beyond those at present allowed by the law, it would be necessary, I apprehend, to propose legislation expressly for that purpose.
Turning to the speech of the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker), who, as is always the case, put what he had to say very reasonably and charmingly, I should like to give him a little reassurance also. He said, and I know he said it sincerely, that he was raising this question as a matter of principle, and with no desire to institute invidious or personal considerations, but I shall show in a moment that personal considerations of a very acute kind will necessarily arise if we examine the matter as he wishes us to do. I would remind him that, so far as the Secretaries of State are concerned, there is a Statute in existence which limits the number of Secretaries of State that can sit in the House of Commons. Of course, originally, there was only one Secretary of State, and, indeed, in one sense it may be said that even to-day there is only one office of Secretary of State, because anyone who is a Secretary of State may lawfully and constitutionally perform any act that can be done by any other Secretary of State. If I may for a moment call on my own personal experience, I happened to be Secretary of State for Home Affairs at the time when Lord Kitchener made his last fatal journey from this country, and just before he sailed from these shores I had a message from the War Office asking me whether I would sign his papers until he came back. I continued to give the formal signature which it is legitimate for any Secretary of State to put upon the papers of any other Secretary of

State, and I did so until the news came of his death.
Constitutionally, the office of Secretary of State is held by a number of persons who may be regarded as all one, and it was originally represented by the Home Secretary. There was, later on, a time when there were three, namely, the War Secretary—at that time he was called the Secretary at War—the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the Home Secretary. It was not until 1858, when the East India Company's control over India ceased, that Parliament put a more direct responsibility for India upon the Secretary of State, and a Secretary of State for India was added. Since then there have been created a Secretary of State for the Colonies—who now divides his office with that of the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs—a Secretary of State for Air, and a Secretary of State for Scotland, transformed from the original Secretary for Scotland in quite recent times. At the present moment there are eight Secretaries of State, but the Statute provides that not more than six of them can sit in the House of Commons, and it will be found that there are six Secretaries of State sitting in the House of Commons now. Therefore, when my hon. Friend says that he does not desire to suggest anything invidious, I ask myself with some anxiety which of us is marked down for the purpose of being transformed as a useless person to another place in order that the Secretary of State for Air may return here? It could not be done within the law unless my hon. Friend is willing to part with one of us six. I will not trespass upon his good nature by asking which of us is marked down for destruction.
May I point out one thing more? I quite agree with my hon. Friend that it is right that the main body of Ministers should sit in the House of Commons. It is questionable, I should think, whether in the future we shall ever find a, Prime Minister holding that office in the House of Lords. Many people think that that is a tradition which is not likely to be repeated. More and more the authority of the Government has become concentrated in this House because, among other things, this House is elected, and, what is more, a vote that is taken on solemn occasions by this House will determine the fate of a Ministry, which is not always necessarily the case in the


other House. As a matter of fact, during the last century there has been more and more concentration in this House of the preponderating number—I will not, say anything about personal authority—of Ministers. I am speaking without having checked it, merely relying upon my recollection, but I think when Mr. Pitt spoke at this Box he had only one other colleague in the House of Commons. All the other Ministers were in the Rouse of Lords.
It is certainly the case that the proportions have changed in a most surprising way. In the eighteenth century right down to the first Reform Bill Cabinets contained far more peers than they did commoners. I have had the particulars looked up and, even as late as the Ministry of the great Lord Grey who carried the Reform Bill, there were only four commoners and 11 peers in the Government. That was the proportion that continued, I should think, until about 1880. The Cabinets of Lord Derby had a majority of peers. But along with the democratic development of our institutions, with the spreading of the franchise and with the increased authority here, more and more you had the numbers of Ministers—it would be very invidious to deal with anything but numbers—in a larger proportion in this House, and that is quite right. Let me take for example Mr. Asquith's Cabinet as it was at the outbreak of the War. Unless I am mistaken, it consisted of seven peers and 14 commoners. That is to say, the House of Commons was to the House of Lords two to one. But that was not a situation that continued. The first Labour Government, for example, which had 20 Cabinet Members, contained 16 commoners and four peers.
Here I must reveal to the hon. Member a sad circumstance about that admirably formed administration. The four peers included the Secretary of State for Air, Lord Thomson, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Chelmsford. That is to say, exactly the same defence Ministers, so far as offices are concerned, as the hon. Member finds now so improperly placed at the other end of the corridor, were exactly the two defence Ministers who were found in the House of Lords in the first Labour administration. But there is this difference that, whereas the Labour Government had only one

Minister in this House of Cabinet rank dealing with matters of defence, we have quite recently provided a second, so that the actual situation is that the present Prime Minister, in advising His Majesty, has doubt d the number of Cabinet Ministers in this House who can speak with special authority on questions relating to defence, whereas the number of Cabinet Ministers in another place in charge of one or other Defence Department is exactly the same as it was in the first Labour Government.
Though I am willing to admit the sincerity and reasonableness with which the hon. Member put forward his point—I can assure him that I am not dismissing it otherwise than quite respectfully and seriously—at the same time I think the matter really stands in general as I have tried to state it, that is to say, the law which the House of Commons has passed in effect provides that you cannot have all the Secretaries of State here. We are bound to have some of them outside the House, and both tradition and convenience really require that they should be in the other House. I think it would be a very serious matte for comment if we did not have in this House the maximum number of Secretaries of State that we can have here, but we cannot have more than six, because six is the maximum fixed by Parliament. In the second place, in fact the arrangement is in accordance with tin general principle which the hon. Member emphasised that more and more authority must concentrate in this House. Finally, in these matters of arrangement we are only following the distribution of offices which is, I believe, identical in this respect with the distribution of the first Labour Government.

Mr. TINKER: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me at what period it was fixed that there should be six Secretaries of State? It is information to me.

Sir J. SIMON: It arose, if I am not mistaken, at the time that the Secretary for Scotland was made Secretary of State. We have always moved it on one when we have added to the total. To state it quite accurately, I do not think it is correct to say that the total number of Secretaries of State is limited by law. I think it is constitutionally possible to have 9, 10 or 11, but you cannot have more than six in this House, and the


real reason of that is, though it does not say so directly, that Parliament feels on the whole that some Secretaries of State should be in another place. A similar arrangement is made about Under-Secretaries, and the point was the subject matter of an interesting and ingenious question raised by an hon. Member on a back bench not long ago. I shall be delighted, if the hon. Member thinks it convenient, to show him a place of which I know in the Statute Book where these things are dealt with. I have tried to state to the House how it really stands, and I thank the hon. Member sincerely for raising the question, and I realise the importance of it.

9.2 p.m.

Sir PERCY HARRIS: We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his interesting and informative historical survey, which it is well to have on the records of the House, but I do not think he has really met, at any rate, our criticism of the present position. I was surprised at his taking cover under the precedent of the Labour Government.

Sir J. SIMON: That was only an illustration.

Sir P. HARRIS: We attach importance to the Secretaries of State presiding over the great spending Departments being in this House. We are quite willing to part with the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He has earned promotion and ennobling by long and arduous service and, no doubt, would ornament another place with distinction. I will not say that about the Secretary of State for the Dominions, but he, too, may find an opportunity to go to another place. If it is necessary to have two Secretaries of State in the House of Lords, it is more according to precedent that the Secretary of State for India or the Colonies or the Dominions should be there. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the precedent of the Labour Government making the unfortunate mistake of having a spending Department represented in another place. I would remind him that that was at a time of drastic economy in armaments, when we still adhered to the ten-year rule of peace, and when it was understood that these Departments were to be more or less static.
Why we feel so strongly is that we are now embarking, rightly or wrongly, under pressure of the international situation, upon expenditure on an almost unprecedented scale, on commitments which, up to the present, have not even been assessed. We attach great importance particularly to the Admiralty and the Air being represented by the Secretary of State in the House of Commons where we can properly criticise them in a way that is impossible when Departments are merely represented by an Under-Secretary. For that reason only we seriously object to the present policy. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) also pointed out that there was no particular reason for either of these right hon. Gentlemen being in another place. They held safe seats by very large majorities, are comparatively young men, and apparently still full of activity and energy enough to justify them in holding these two responsible positions. What seems unfortunate is that it was found necessary to translate them away from the control of the House of Commons to the calm and uncritical atmosphere of another place. The most important function still of the House of Commons is to control the purse strings. That has been our claim from time immemorial, and therefore, in spite of history and of the precedent of the Labour Government, we lodge our protest against the representatives of great spending Departments being in another place.

PALESTINE.

9.8 p.m.

Captain STRICKLAND: As one who has taken a considerable interest in the growth and development of the Mandated Territory of Palestine, and who, unfortunately, by the force of circumstances was prevented from speaking after having waited several hours while the subject was under debate, I wish to state briefly my views with regard to the situation which has arisen, and which, in my judgment, need not have arisen in its present acute form had it not been through the unholy and eager haste of the Government and the Colonial Secretary in pushing on to that country a matter for which it is so little prepared. I refer to the matter of the Legislative Council. It is a British principle that we progress from one position to another in ever-growing


strength in order to accomplish that which is best for the people over whom we have control. We in this country have developed our constitution through long centuries of progress, and it is in comparatively recent years that democracy has been entrusted with this great task in ever-increasing numbers of maintaining the health, wealth and happiness of our people.
In so far as we have been able to control the development of self-government in our various Dominions and Colonies, it has always been based upon the principle of not rushing full self-government on to the people until they were fully prepared to accept that great responsibility. Where we have parted from that principle and endeavoured to foist a constitution upon a country, it has almost inevitably resulted in abject failure. In the matter of Palestine, as the mandatory Power we are pledged to develop the country, so that the time may come when the people of Palestine may be able and fit to govern themselves. It would not be the wish of this country to maintain its hold upon Palestine or to enforce its will one moment longer than was absolutely necessary for the full development of that country. When we have tried, as we did in Cyprus and in other places, to hasten that day before the people were ready, we have usually found that we have had to take other steps in an attempt to regain the position which we have lost. We, the mandatory Power, were entrusted by the nations of the world with a specific object, but side by side with that specific object of development there comes the promise which this country, wisely or unwisely, undertook when it took upon itself the mandatory Power. That roughly divides itself into two parts.
First, and this is indisputable, we pledged ourselves to establish in Palestine a Jewish national home, and secondly, we undertook to develop the natural and national rights of the races which already inhabited that country. We are pledged to the development of self-governing institutions. What is the "self" of Palestine? We are aiming at the best means by which we can fulfil the pledge we have given of establishing in Palestine a Jewish national home and of protecting the rights of the people already there. The pledge of a Jewish national home was

not made to the inhabitants of Palestine at the time, but was given definitely to world Jewry. It was a pledge definitely issued to the whole race of the Jews throughout the world, that we would use our best endeavours to try and establish in Palestine a home for the Jews. That was the pledge that was given, and it was apparently fully recognised. In a letter from the right hon. Gentleman the present Lord President of the Council to Dr. Weizmann in 1931, the right hon. Gentleman said:
The Government recognise that the Mandate is an undertaking to the Jewish people, and not only to the Jewish population in Palestine.
When we speak of a Jewish national home it means something wider and deeper than mere habitation. If you are to establish a home for Jews, it has to be placed where they can feel at rest, peace and security from the attacks of those who may be at enmity with them. It means something more than merely preventing the Jews from immigration into that country; it means the active encouragement of immigration and of those qualities which the Jews have already brought to Palestine. This is made all the more urgent because as we look round the world we see the intense, bitter and cruel persecution which is pressing these people, and to these people Palestine is the promise of a home backed by the British authority—a great picture, something which really rouses in them a sense of national pride and the spirit of Israel, and runs throughout the whole world as a new hope to thousands of Jews who have been living in misery and degradation for many years past. If the British pledged word is to be carried into effect the time is not yet ripe for the formation of a legislative council on the basis laid down in the White Paper.
The Jews have gone to Palestine and have paid for everything they have had. The Government have done precious little to help Jewish emigrants. There has been a niggardly policy in regard to the number of emigrants allowed to go into Palestine, and in the fixing of capital values in the case of many Jews who desire to get to their national home. It has not been in the true sense any fulfilment of the pledge. The Jews have had no free grants of land like the Arabs. Instead of having received the finest parts,


the most fertile parts, of Palestine any one who has been there, as I have, will know that they have had the very worst of the land, which is all that they could get, swampy land, around which colony after colony has perished, but which they have been glad to have because it is part of their home-land. Where would Palestine be to-day but for the wonderful and marvellous Jewish organisation which has built it up? Is there any one who will argue that, had it not been for the Jews, electricity would be within the reach of all, or that the magnificent roads which are now being built would have been completed under Arab enterprise? There is the great enterprise at the Dead Sea, which employs many people now. Would these enterprises have been organised but for the Jews?
There is also the question of better housing. The Arabs are now housed, thanks to the efforts of the Jews, in a way of which the Arabs themselves would never have dreamed. Sandy deserts have been turned into fertile country. Mention has been made of the Beisan territory which has been given to the Arabs for all time. I was there two years ago and saw the same old dreary wastes and the same old dreary habitations, which the people have been living under for centuries past. Side by side on exactly similar land were the fertile orange groves and vineyards and plantations of the Jews. The Jews are building Palestine not merely for themselves but for the Arabs, amongst whom they live and work and with whom they would be upon perfectly friendly terms if they were left alone by outside political organisations.
It is also well to remember, in connection with the great budget surplus, that although the Jews are only 25 per cent. of the population they are paying between 65 and 70 per cent. of the taxation. It was the coming of the Jews which raised the standard of Arab living and their rate of wages far beyond what would otherwise have been possible. I am not going to belittle the enormous value that British backing has been to this effort, and no Jew would wish to depreciate the enormous value which the British administration has been in giving them a sense of security. But I cannot get out of my mind the mandate under which we took over this territory. It seems to me that the whole principle of the adminis-

tration rests upon the mandate. I read in Arab newspapers a statement like this in the "Moslem Times," of 12th March, speaking of the Jews:
They must realise that, after all, Jewish immigrants are all foreigners to the land. … Much has been made of the mandatory obligations and the British Government firmly hold that it is committed to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews.' There is no doubt it is so, no one can deny it for a single moment. But may we respectfully ask as to what exactly constitutes the authority behind this mandatory power? Is it necessarily right and moral simply because it was laid down a good many years ago under special circumstances? Is there no end to the number of Jewish immigrants and their increasing demands for all kinds of rights? The mandate is by no means a divine institution; it is a man-made document.
When you are proposing to hand over the administration of this country, with proposals to reserve certain subjects, it must be remembered that this is the spirit which lies behind the Arab population, the official political Arab population of Palestine to-day. Not even the Mandate is safe with the pledge given by the British Government. It is only a manmade document, and is something which can be cast on one side. What sort of confidence does that give to the Jews? When you are going to give them a legislative council which will have a majority for the next five years of Arabs, one can easily see the great unrest and uneasiness of the Jews, who look with longing eyes to the day when they will be taken from the slums and ghettos of Europe and placed on the land of Palestine, with a new light in their eyes and a new spirit in their hearts. I should like to read another extract from the White Paper from Palestine issued in 1930:
It is obvious that in order to establish effective self-government on a national scale, it is imperative first to introduce on a more solid basis a wide measure of local self-government in order to enable the inhabitants, and especially the more backward section of the population, to obtain practical experience of administrative methods and the business of government and to learn discrimination in the selection of representatives.
That is only five years ago. That was the view of His Majesty's Government then, and since then the experiment has been tried of getting these people to take an intelligent interest in the local government of the country. I wish that it had been possible to give one example of


where the spread of the municipal administration under Arab rule has proved a success. When the Government two years ago passed its extension of municipal government it found it necessary not to increase the electorate, which was then only 1.6 of the Arab population—excluding the city of Jerusalem, which has a Jewish majority—but to decrease the number of voters, although the population had increased tremendously. Yet in this proposal, which I hope will never receive the sanction of this House, it is proposed not only to give the franchise to every man of 25 years of age, whether illiterate or otherwise, but also to leave it to the local government authority as to whether they shall entrust the franchise to the women as well.
What is it that is behind the mind of His Majesty's Government and the High Commissioner of Palestine which has suddenly induced them to believe that in this short year or two it has been found possible not to entrust just the local government to a complete adult franchise, but the very government of the country itself? It may be said that there are safeguards in the White Paper, that the High Commissioner is going to retain the last word. How long do you think that he will be able to retain the last word when the elected representatives of the people demand revision of the Mandate, that immigration of Jews shall stop or that the Jews shall have no more land? I should like to ask why the Under-Secretary for the Colonies made this statement in another place—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member must not quote speeches made in another place.

Captain STRICKLAND: It was stated in another place that the proposals—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: We must not discuss statements made in another place in the same Session.

Captain STRICKLAND: I would like to ask then whether it is too late now to bring forward proposals not to bring into effect this particular White Paper? It might be said by the Secretary of State for the Colonies that we are too late to do this now, the reason being that the High Commissioner had already divulged these terms to the leaders of

the Arabs and of the Jews, and that, therefore, we should be powerless to say Yes or No to these proposals. But if that is so, I submit that it was an entirely wrong way of going to work, because if this House is to be bound by the statement of the High Commissioner of any Colony or district, over which we have control, that is the end of the control by Parliament or our own Dominions. In all sincerity, knowing a little about this country, knowing something of the great development that has taken place, of the real fear which lies in the hearts of the Jews that the whole of the edifice which they have built up with such patient care is to come crashing to the ground in the next few months, I ask why it is that the Colonial Secretary told us that the time was overripe for introducing this Measure? We may have given a pledge—we certainly would give a pledge at any time—that as and when a country was able to govern itself we would be the very first to place that power in the hands of the people. Having made that pledge, it does not seem to me that within a year we are bound to bring in this legislative council. If this council were brought in in five years' time we should still fulfil the pledge given at Geneva that we would enable Palestine to govern itself as and when it was capable of doing that.
If it comes to a question of expressing pleasure or displeasure with the way the Government have brought forward these proposals I ask this House to pause seriously before it lends it name to these proposals, before it says "Yes, in spite of what we have told you about establishing your home we are going to leave you high and dry." Remember Ireland. We were going to give them self-government. Everything was going to be nice. We were going to retain the power in this country. Ireland would not be able to break away. Where is that power to-day? In Southern Ireland it has gone. If we part with this power which we held to-day, with the respect not only of the Jews but of the Arabs, we shall live to see the day when bitterness and strife will break out in Palestine, where now peace and good will are growing among the people. If only they are allowed to continue we shall get in increasing measure that spirit of friendliness and joint nationality which in the long run must accomplish far more than the break-


ing of a whole system by the placing of the Jews in a permanent minority in their national home.

Question, put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Thursday.

Orders of the Day — IMPORT DUTIES (IMPORT DUTIES ACT, 1932).

9.34 p. m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): I beg to move:
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 3) Order, 1936, dated the third day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said third day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved.
It has been the practice, with the permission of yourself, Mr. Speaker, and of the House, to make one general introductory speech on a number of these Orders, leaving the House free to vote on each one, and to answer such questions as hon. Members may care to put. I propose, unless there is any objection, to follow that course to-night. The four Orders on the Paper deal with box and willow calf leather, with felt hats and felt hat shapes, with soya bean cake, meal and oil, sunflower seed oil and safflower seed oil, and with certain locks and padlocks. I think it will probably be convenient if I give most time to the Order which deals with leather which, being an Order placing a duty on a raw material, requires more commendation than some of the remaining Orders.
Order No. 3, which deals with leather, imposes as from 5th March of this year a further duty of 15 per cent. ad valorem, making a total duty of 30 per cent. ad valorem, on box and willow calf and certain other similar dressed leathers if imported in skins or pieces weighing less than four pounds each. The Committee say that the recommendation is a temporary one made in the interests of the home tanners of box and willow calf leather, the marketing of whose products is being prejudiced by intense competition from certain foreign countries at greatly reduced prices bearing little relation to production price. The 30 per cent. duty is a high rate of duty for a raw material, and

the situation is to be reviewed from time to time in the light of the trend of prices of foreign box and willow calf leather and the position of the home tanning industry. As to the export trade in footwear, assurances have been given by the tanners in this country which, in the opinion of the Committee, will go far towards mitigating any inconvenience that might have occurred.
Taking the duty on leather and expounding it a little, let me tell the House that most box and willow calf leather comes in in skins or pieces weighing less than 4 lbs. each. That is why that particular unit is chosen. Of the total leather affected, 98 per cent. is box and willow calf and only 2 per cent., something quite infinitesimal, other types of leather. The home production of this type of leather increased to 4,500,000 square feet in 1930, was doubled by 1933, and in 1934 totalled 10,000,000 square feet. But the marketing of this British product has been seriously prejudiced by special competition at particularly reduced prices on the part of certain exporting countries. The countries from which these articles are imported into this country are Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary, and there is a small import from within the British Dominions, from Canada; but it is Germany which is the principal exporter to this country.
Production in this country is chiefly in the hands of 12 large firms, which employ something like 1,300 workpeople on calf leather production, and which are situated in Glasgow, Northampton, Nottingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Norwich and Bristol. The effect is roughly an increase in the duty of 1½d. per square foot on the raw material. The principal users of this raw material are the boot and shoe manufacturers, and the boot and shoe manufacturers supply a very high proportion of the home market in footwear and have a very extensive export trade. It is not thought that the increase in duty will have a disturbing effect on the home trade. It is estimated that if the prices of leather were to be increased by the full amount of the duty, the resultant cost would be something like 3d. a pair on men's, women's and children's shoes of average grade. The market price of this class of leather is abnormally low, and it would be well below the price level prevailing in the years 1930 and 1931, even if the leather prices prevailing


before the duty were increased by the full extent of the duty.
I think I have substantially given the particulars with regard to that Order, although if hon. Members desire I have further details concerning the countries, the prices, the extent of the imports and all other relevant information relating to that particular Order.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Will the hon. Gentleman give the number of million square feet now imported?

Mr. MARKHAM: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will also give an idea as to whether there is to be any control over the price of the raw material when the added duty is imposed. I understand that there are fears in the trade that the imposition of the extra 15 per cent. may create a rise in the price of raw materials to boot manufacturers.

Dr. BURGIN: I am anxious to deal with all those points, and the only question is whether I should do so in my opening speech or deal with them in answer to questions. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough. (Mr. Alexander) asked what are the total imports in millions of square feet. In 1935 the average monthly importation from all countries was 4,178,245 square feet, of which 3,500,000 came from foreign countries and roughly 750,000 from within the Empire. Of the 3,500,000 square feet which came from foreign countries, just on 2,000,000 came from Germany, 500,000 from Hungary, just under 500,000 from the Netherlands and a small quantity from France.
With regard to the question put by the hon. Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Markham), I think I made it clear that we have obtained assurances from the tanners as to the price of this leather where required for export. I, therefore, gather that the hon. Gentleman's question is not directed towards exports, but to the home trade. I have already pointed out that the moment this leather is at an abnormally low price, and even if the whole of the duty were added, the price would still be lower than the raw material costs in 1930 and 1931. I do not think there is any need for any special control at this moment, but the hon. Gentleman and the House will see that

in the recommendations given by the Committee it is proposed that the situation should be reviewed from time to time in the light of the trend of prices, the home tanning industry being especially one of the industries that is affected. I think the hon. Gentleman will feel that steps have been taken to see that there is no undue rise in the price to manufacturers.

Mr. GALLACHER: The hon. Gentleman gave the importation of leather figures, and I would like to ask whether he would inform the House what is the home production price and the capacity of the home production?

Dr. BURGIN: I am not quite clear as to what the hon. Gentleman means by the capacity of the home production, but the British boot and shoe, manufacturers control not only the home market but have a large export market. It is precisely because there is no natural reason why there should not be a large box and willow calf industry in this country that this duty is being recommended; it is because the trade is one which could very well be fostered and increased in our own country. It seems quite, unnecessary that we should import such a large percentage.

Mr. GALLACHER: Are there not factories in the country capable of producing this leather; or is there not an opportunity for starting new factories in the derelict areas?

Dr. BURGIN: The hon. Member has in mind exactly what was in the minds of the Committee in making the recommendation. It is to encourage this industry in our own land that the duty is being imposed. Let us deal with the matter on that footing. The next Order, No. 4, proposes an immediate specific duty of 15s. a dozen on felt hats and hat shapes having a velour, soleil, peach bloom, or other finish with a raised or laid pile. It is pointed out that the production of felt hat shapes which have a raised or laid pile involves considerably more labour than the manufacture of plain fur felt goods, and though the home industry has made some progress in the production of these shapes, up to the present it has not made great headway in displacing imports. The purpose of the duty is to build up a new industry rather than to support an important existing industry. The new rate of duty does not


apply in the case of loosely felted hat forms and cone shaped felt hat bodies. These goods remain dutiable at 25 per cent. ad valorem irrespective of whether they have velour finish or not. The industry is situated in the North and Midlands, and also in Luton and the South. Manufacturers in the North carry out the production principally in the earlier stages. The industry in Luton and the South for the most part does not carry out the earlier stages, but purchases hat shapes from foreign suppliers or from the North and Midlands for making up. The imports come from Austria and Czechoslovakia, and the wage rates in both countries are much lower than those in the United Kingdom, where wages in the hat industry are regulated under the Trade Board Act.

Miss WILKINSON: Has the hon. Gentleman any guarantee in the case of velour that the industry in this country can meet requirements as to price, colouring and finish?

Dr. BURGIN: I would not put it as high as to say that there is a guarantee to that effect but the manufacture in the North of England where these velours are made has now so far developed as to make an article which commends itself to the trade and the public and I think the hon. Lady need have no anxiety on the particular points to which she has addressed herself, namely, price, colouring and general finish.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: Is the hon. Gentleman certain that the dyers can produce a hat which would be suitable to the hon. Lady's hair?

Dr. BURGIN: I shall always be glad to reply to any relevant question—

Sir P. HARRIS: Have the Luton manufacturers who use these goods in making up the finished product, had an opportunity to express their view?

Dr. BURGIN: I should be surprised if they were not applicants to the Committee for this particular Order.

Sir P. HARRIS: I do not think so.

Dr. BURGIN: I think the hon. Baronet is mistaken. The application, I imagine, came from that source as well.

Mr. ALEXANDER: The report does not show it.

Dr. BURGIN: I will, if possible, obtain information on the point before the close of the discussion but I do not know of any protests or objections having come from that source and I think I should probably have heard of them had the point been seriously raised. The next Order which I have to submit increases the duty on soya bean cake and meal, soya bean oil, sunflower seed oil, and safflower seed oil from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. as from 11th March, 1936. The imports of soya bean cake, meal and oil have very greatly increased in recent months. These beans as the House knows were originally on the free list. They were then made subject to a 10 per cent. duty by the Finance Act of 1935, in the interests of the Colonies which produce ground nuts. In the Committee's opinion the duties will not cause hardship to the consumers, as there is available a wide range of substitutable cakes, and oils of Empire origin. The duties on sunflower seed and safflower seed oils are necessary owing to difficulties in distinguishing these from soya bean oils. The trade in these two oils is small. There is a provision for a drawback under Section 7 of the Finance Act of 1934.
Order No. 6 deals with locks and padlocks and increases the existing duty of 20 per cent. on the cheaper grades by the addition of a specific duty of 6d. a dozen to the ad valorem duty or the provision of a specific duty as an alternative. In the lock industry, in general, British manufacturers hold their own against foreign competition, but the section of the industry which produces cheap padlocks and furniture locks and which might have been expected to benefit from the extension of the cheap furniture trade has been losing the market owing to imports at uneconomic prices. The retail prices are not expected to be affected. The competition comes from Germany and the United States— from Germany as to 88 per cent. and from the United States and Canada as to the remainder.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER: I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary or his chief have any influence with the Prime Minister or the Chief Whip and, if so, why they do not try to prevent the Orders being taken at such an unsuitable time as this. They are in danger of


becoming the most unpopular Ministers in the House. These Orders, dealing with important trade questions, are raised again and again always at the end of the day. When the House is thoroughly tired we are asked to examine these technical questions, often affecting Members' constituency interests. We are never given a real opportunity for adequate examination of the details involved in the industries concerned. I think the Board of Trade, which used to be at any rate one of the important factors in influencing the decisions of the Government in regard to the use of Parliamentary time, ought to protest and see that it has its business discussed at a more reasonable hour of the day.
I will address myself to the first duty mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary, and that is the duty of an additional 15 per cent. on box and willow calf leather. I never heard of such a patched up case—I am not blaming the Parliamentary Secretary—as he has handed on to us from this Council of Three that sit very nearly in secret and never really give us any adequate explanation, in the short White Papers submitted, of the grave wisdom which they are supposed to exercise in the initiation of these duties. What a story this is that has been put before us to-night. The Parliamentary Secretary says that 1,300 workers engaged in the production of these particular classes of leather are engaged in an industry which might well be worth the support of a protective duty for widening and developing the industry. This commodity, however, happens to be the raw material of the hoot and shoe industry, which is employing tens of thousands of workers. In fact, the actual trade union organising the boot and shoe industry has over 60,000 members, and there are even more workers than that engaged in the industry, and when you gradually get the numbers and the quantity of the commodities under review, what a revelation you get. You are already producing in this industry, with a total of 1,300 workers, 10,000,000 square feet of this class of leather. When you ask the Parliamentary Secretary how much we are importing, you find that the total, including your Empire countries, is barely over 4,000,000 feet, so that if you were at once to be able, as you do not expect to be able, to shut out every foot of the leather that you are now going

to tax, apparently the total extent of the increased employment, you could give in this country would be between 500 and 600 workers, and by that means you might have raised the actual number employed in the tanning of this class of leather to something less than 2,000 workers, in the course of which you would have taxed the raw material of a trade which is employing at least 30 to 40 times that number of workers in this country already, and in the course of that tax you not only increase the price of the article and thereby in the long run reduce the demand in tie home market, but you add—

Dr. BURGIN: Quite inadvertently, I quoted a month instead of a year. In giving the figure of 4,000,000 square feet, I had overlooked the fact that it was a monthly average rather than a yearly total. The amount from all countries is just over 50,000,000 square are feet.

Mr. ALEXANDER: That is a very strong support of my plea to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should urge the Prime Minister to let him do his work by day and not by night. I do not make any complaint, but it certainly led me to use an argument which now is not so strong, though it is not completely gone. But even if you take those actual figures, with a total import of about 45,000,000 feet, the total extent of employment that you could give to this industry, if it manufactured every foot of leather at present imported, would still leave it in a very small relationship to the tens of thousands of workers employed in the industry which uses this commodity as a raw material. There is no doubt at all that this duty ought to be resisted. In this report the Committee themselves have some doubt, for they say:
We recognise that a duty at this rate is justified on material of the nature in question only in exceptional circumstances.
What are the exceptional circumstances? As a matter of fact, there is not one of us who has any superficial knowledge even of the boot and shoe manufacturing industry who does not know that while there is—and I am glad to know there is—an improvement in certain of the processes and the technique of tanning this class of leather in this country, it is true to say that in regard many of the lines of boots and shoes which have to be made, you cannot get the qualities of


leather from home production that are essential to the business, and they have to come from imported sources. I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary can say that it is not essential to some parts of the industry that they should continue to import as their raw material certain of the classes of leathers now coming into this country of a quality and a standard which have not yet been reached by the home tanning industry. I feel, therefore, very strongly on this duty, and I shall ask the House to oppose it.
We had a short explanation in regard to the three other duties. First of all, with regard to hats. I suppose the chief source of import of the hat shapes and hats that the hon. Gentleman talked about would be Austria and Czechoslovakia. You can see the sort of thing that is being done by this type of duty. Already you have rendered a grave injustice under the Versailles Treaty by carving up Austria and leaving her a little bit of territory to keep one great central city of 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 people going, and every duty of this sort is making it worse for any hope of gaining a real economic revival and resettlement of the problem of Central Europe.
Although the Parliamentary Secretary said he understood the Luton manufacturers were likely to be behind this application, I do not read from the report in the White Paper that that is so. There have been, I know, considerable references in the trade paper's in the last few months to the growth of the hat trade in the north and Midlands, and the suggestion that there are certain faults at present—I am not giving this as my opinion, but I am taking it from trade papers—in the Luton area which has led to their falling behind in the development of the hat trade. I have no personal knowledge that the Luton people have been factors in this application for a. duty, but I have no doubt at all that in the north and Midlands the manufacturers have been concerned in the application. Certainly, this again is another trifling addition to the duties which are gradually being built up.
The third duty referred to is another instance of the tragedy of the preferential system set up on the lines of the Ottawa Treaty. We had the most classic example of all examined here in the Debate last December with regard to linseed oil, and here you have something almost entirely

similar in regard to soya beans. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1935 was persuaded, in order to give a special preference for nut growers in one or more. Colonies, to put a duty on soya beans, which are a raw material for the purposes of the crusher. He finds then that he has a handicap of 10 per cent. His cakes and meals which he sells to the farmers here then come into competition with imported or other competing foods, and he finds himself being put out of business by the actual 10 per cent. duty put on. "Oh," says the Import Duties Advisory Committee, "never let that discourage you. It is always possible to cure one wrong by making another one. Let us put on another duty, taxing the prepared meal or prepared cake when it comes in in that form." At the time when you are trying to revivify agriculture, endeavouring to protect the farmer in the home market with the product that he puts over, you come along and set up a whole series of taxes on the raw materials of the farmer himself. What a mad world it all is, and this country is lending itself to such a system as that without any real result at all in the final raising of the standard of life or the prosperity of the industries concerned.
Lastly I come to the duty on locks. I am quite unable to understand on what basis the Committee have come to their judgment, but apparently there is one section of the lock industry, the more expensive locks, where they consider the duty is adequate and they do not propose to raise it. There is another class of locks used in the manufacture of cheap suit cases and the like, which apparently they are so nervous about that they do not want to interfere with it because they do not want to raise the price of cheap attaché cases, and suit cases used by the working class. But there is another class also of cheap locks on which they propose to put a tax especially. Why? All I know is that they are putting increased duties on that type of lock that is used by the working class, and the actual expenditure of the industry in this country to-day dealing with the type of lock that the Parliamentary Secretary is asking us to tax to-night is really very small indeed.
The whole of this series of duties, I submit, are irritating and unnecessary additions to the growing wall of taxation that is being placed around the trade of


this country. Instead of helping they are hindering the recovery of our export trade, and I believe that we should register once more our opinion that the revivification of industry and the raising of the standard of life of the workers of this country, is not to be obtained by putting on circles or individual cases of duties of this kind for the private profit of manufacturers. If you are going to raise the standard of life in this country it must be on the basis of the widest possible exchange of goods between the countries concerned, and the largest amount of working-class production in the interest of the whole community, workers and consumers alike. We, therefore, oppose all four of these duties, and while we do not want to keep the House with regard to a whole series of Divisions, having taken the general discussion as a whole, we shall ask the House to divide.

10.10 p.m.

Sir P. HARRIS: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. He certainly has put the case so well that I do not intend to cover the whole ground again, but I want to associate myself and my Friends with the case he has put up. He was very much disturbed apparently at the late hour at which the import Orders are being taken. But I would remind him, speaking now with some years experience, that he is new to this game, due to his absence during the last two or three years. We are comparatively fortunate in taking these Orders soon after Ten o'clock. Generally they are exempted business and in the ordinary way we take them at Eleven o'clock or later, even in the early hours of the morning, and I remember in one case having to sit up until Four o'clock in the morning in order to protest against one of the most pernicious of these Orders.
But it is well to remind the public through the House of Commons of the very unsatisfactory system of reviewing these duties, sometimes downwards and sometimes upwards, late at night. I suppose it is inevitable, if we are to work the machinery. I agree with the protest against this tax on leather. After all it has always been a tradition of even our most violent Protectionists that raw material should be exempt, and although of course this is not a primary product—because it goes through some processes,

and when it becomes leather it is not in the rawest state—it is the raw material of one of the healthiest and most efficient of our stable industries. During all the ups and downs of trade in the last 30 years no industry has been healthier, stronger or more virile than the boot and shoe industry. It has had comparatively few disputes, has paid a relatively high wage, and has survived depression in a remarkable way when cotton and other trades have been in a bad way. It has been able to stand through bad times.
I have a very vivid recollection of how 30 years ago we were told that the boot industry was being ruined by American imports. At that time there had been great progress in America in the mass-production of boots through the invention of various machines. Tremendous progress had been made in the system of manufacture by the Goodyear welting machine, new lasts and above all new materials. Politicians were running around the country and offering the manufacturers Protection. But the manufacturers did not ask for it or get it. They introduced ingenious machinery, American lasts and cheap American leather. What was the result? In a few years time they were making American boots, that is to say boots in the American style with American leather and American machinery, very much more cheaply than America. They produced them in this country in the full light of free imports far more efficiently and cheaply than America, and the result was that they not only captured the home trade but the world trade as well.
The Commissioners, these three gentlemen, have sat in their wisdom and decided to tax an essential raw material, to tax the leather of these manufacturers. We are not told in this report how far the boot manufacturers were consulted. One of my comments on these reports of recent years is that they are shorter and shorter. Whether it is to economise paper I do not know, or whether they think the House of Commons is so docile and so uncritical that it does not want to have more such figures. They do not bother to give us more than a page or a few paragraphs. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade attempts to fill up some of the gaps, but I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should convey to the se three gentlemen


that they ought to give us fuller reports. Let them give us some kind of synopsis of whom and what they have seen, a few more figures and facts and the essential details of the industry. It is not fair to the House to expect it to come to a conclusion without this information. The great majority of Members, I believe, do not bother to read these Orders.

Mr. DENVILLE: Hear, hear!

Sir P. HARRIS: My hon. Friend evidently takes pride in that fact; he is neglecting his duties. That is against the traditions of the House, for we are still responsible to the taxpayers for looking after the expenditure of public money. We have to be careful that in trying to help one industry we are not hindering some other industry. That particularly applies to this first Order, but it applies to all the Orders. My hon. Friend referred to soya bean meal, which is a finished product. We are constantly told that agriculture is a depressed industry, and these materials are, I suppose, imported largely for farmers. The duty is not a small one, amounting to 20 per cent. The report on this Order is another example of the scanty nature of the material on which we are asked to accept the duty. The same applies to locks. It is a common practice of these Commissioners to go out of their way to put an extra tax on the cheaper articles. It is rather sinister, for these articles go to production of the cheaper class of furniture. I do not understand why the Commissioners should think it more important to tax the cheap article which is used for the lower class commodities than to tax the better class commodities. That is noticeable in each one of these Orders.
With regard to the Order dealing with felt hats and hat shapes, I was surprised that when I interrupted the Parliamentary Secretary he was not, able to reply about Luton. I understood he was the Member for Luton, and I should have thought he would have taken a great deal of trouble to find out how this duty affected his own industry. The centre of the hat trade is Luton, which largely produces the finished product in those delightful hats which are the pride of ladies and provides so much labour for the young women of Luton. We understand from this very scanty report that

the shapes are made in the North and Midlands and sent down to the hat manufacturers of Luton. The Luton manufacturers cannot carry on their trade entirely on the home market and it has been famous for its export trade. It exports hats all over the world. If these goods from Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia are to be stopped or heavily taxed, is it not reasonable to suppose that the manufacturers in those countries, as they will not be able to send goods to Luton, will turn out the finished product themselves and compete in the neutral markets of the world with the hat manufacturers of Luton? I suggest that the hon. Gentleman makes investigations in Luton, and that before we finally part with this Order he should be satisfied that he will not only be helping a comparatively small number of manufacturers of hoods in the North and Midlands and one or two, I believe, in Luton, but that he is not imposing a serious injury on a large number of people employed in the manufacture of the finished product.

10.21 p.m.

Mr. MARKHAM: I wish to put one or two points to the Minister with respect to Order No. 3 covering box and willow calf leather. I agree that the House does need much more information respecting these Orders, and it would be very helpful if the Minister could inform us whether there has been any protest from the boot and shoe industry regarding them. At the same time I wish to point out to hon. Members opposite that there is not the slightest probability of the price of boots and shoes being raised as the result of this Order or any such Order. As a matter of fact after the 15 per cent. duty was put on there was a successive reduction in the prices of boots and shoes from that day to this, and the tendency in the industry is for a gradual cheapening of processes, and therefore for a cheapening of box and willow calf goods, generally speaking. I wish to make a strong protest against the attitude of the right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) on this question. He made it the point almost of a cheap jest that an Order like this was not worth while because it would only mean finding employment for 500 or 600 more men in the tanning industry even if we secured the maximum possible benefits from a stoppage of the importation of this leather. I say that the fact


that the Order will put into work an extra 500 or 600 men is a reason why the whole House ought to welcome the proposal.

Mr. ALEXANDER: But that is not the end of the story. The introduction of this duty will put 500 or 600 men out of work in the export trade.

Mr. MARKHAM: I think that estimate is absolutely questionable. If the House would give me the time I should be prepared to go into the details, but the right hon. Gentleman must know that the actual amount of British labour which would be occupied in the transportation of imported goods would not amount to one-sixtieth of the labour we lean put to work in this country in the manufacture of these materials.

Mr. ALEXANDER: Nonsense.

10.23 p.m.

Mr. MANDER: Will my hon. Friend be good enough to say whether, in considering these applications, the Import Duties Advisory Committee have gone into the question of whether or not the standard rate of wages and other conditions are being observed in these industries? When the Act was going through Amendments were put down—I put down some myself—to make it a statutory duty of the Committee to investigate that point, but we were told that everything would be quite in order without them because those points would be considered. I am sure that hon. Members in all parts of the House, whatever they may think of the principle underlying these duties, would agree that no duty should be imposed unless the standard rate of wages is being observed by all employers who come under it. I ask the question more specifically about the lock and latch industry, which affects my constituency, because there has been some controversy in this connection in the past.
There is in the industry a joint industrial council on which both employers and employed are represented, and they agree upon standard rates, but a complaint has been made that not all employers will observe those rates. Some of them pay lower wages and "blackleg" the great bulk of the employers who really do carry out the

arrangements. I should very much like to know whether the Advisory Committee have satisfied themselves that if this duty does go through, not only the bulk of the employers but all the employers in the trade will pay the agreed rates to which employers and employed have set their hands. It is to that point that I would ask my hon. Friend to be good enough to reply, and to give us information.

10.26 p.m.

Mr. LECKIE: I did not intend to intervene in the discussion, but I would like to say a word in regard to Order No. 6, relating to locks and padlocks. I heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander), speaking in eloquent terms, say that the Order was inimical to the working classes. In my constituency we have a very large and flourishing cooperative lock factory which employs a great number of hands and is doing a very considerable business both at home and abroad. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has consulted them before speaking to-night.

Mr. ALEXANDER: Oh, yes.

Mr. LECKIE: I have not had a complaint from them with regard to this Order, or any request that I should oppose it. That should be remembered. Lock factories have been suffering from competition abroad, and I am convinced that the Import Duties Advisory Committee must have given careful attention to this matter and I am quite prepared to accept their conclusions on the subject.

10.28 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) will, I hope, acquit the Board of Trade of any desire to put these Orders before the House at this time. I am not infrequently, perhaps, the chief sufferer from the present practice. It is not the wish of the President of the Board of Trade or of myself that the House should have these Orders at this late hour. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about these Orders as small irritating additions. Is it not a fact that when Parliament passed the Import Duties Act of 1932, this system of Advisory Committee was set up. An ad valorem duty of a general character having been passed, the task was delegated to this special tribunal to go,


industry and industry and section of industry by section of industry, into the question of what additions must be made. In the nature of things, an addition to the tariff must now be relatively small and precise and in rather a narrow compass. Perhaps that is why the Committee take much more evidence and publish only their recommendations.
I should have been grateful myself had there been considerably more information in some of these Orders. It would have facilitated my task. It is no easy matter to know what material will be of interest to hon. Members and what should be prepared in advance to put before the House. It is not easy to prepare a brief or to answer questions that have been raised. In connection with the proposed leather duty, matters have been raised far outside any preparation that I made, but I think I can deal with the questions which have been put to me.
The hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) raised a question about the leather duty. I would like to give the House one or two facts. The boot and shoe industry spend, during an average year, some £20,000,000 on leather. What proportion of that leather does the House think is box and willow calf? The answer is something like 10 per cent. Box and willow calf are used principally for men's shoes; women's and children's are made of other materials. The trade in this type of leather, including home-produced and Empire-produced, is about £2,000,000 in the entire year. The hon. Baronet talked of the Import Duties Advisory Committee and their procedure, and would like to know much more about what is placed before that committee. Parliament, however, has elected that that body should be supreme and independent, and I have no more information about what it does than has the hon. Baronet.

Sir P. HARRIS: I did not suggest anything of that kind. I agree that we are anxious that these three gentlemen should do their work in a calm atmosphere, away from politicians. All that I am asking is that we should have fuller reports. I think the hon. Gentleman would be in order in asking them to give fuller reports than they have lately been accustomed to give.

Dr. BURGIN: No doubt the Members of the Committee will read the report of this Debate, and will see how that observation from the hon. Baronet met with some general support in the House. It is certainly not one from which I should in any way dissent; I think that material is of advantage, for the reasons I have just indicated. The hon. Baronet also asked why there was a tendency for duties to be put on importations of articles of cheaper type. On that question I would make this general observation, that I do not think you help the consumers of articles of this type by allowing the makers of them in this country to be put out of business by importations below cost. The cheap locks of this type which have been coming in from Germany, no doubt as the result of subsidised exports from Germany, have been coming in below cost, and I cannot believe that that is healthy either for the consumer or for the producer here. It follows that the Import Duties Advisory Committee have very reasonably seen that one of the classes of imports which could be profitably reduced was this type of very cheap article, which is interfering with the trade here. If the article is being sold here below cost, it is not to the interest of the consumer any more than of the producer that that should be allowed to continue.
The hon. Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Markham) raised the question whether the boot and shoe manufacturers had protested against this duty on leather. They have not protested to my knowledge. I cannot give him any definite assurance that they have not, but I have not among my papers any indication that there has been a protest of the kind to which he refers. I repeat that I said earlier, namely, that a satisfactory assurance has been obtained from the tanning industry that the export trade shall not be affected. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough, in talking about men being put into work in the home trade while others are put out of work in the export section, has failed to give adequate weight to the assurance the tanners have given that the export industry shall not be affected as a result of this duty. I do not think that we shall have a man put out of work as a result of the duty. It is a fanciful deduction.

Mr. ALEXANDER: May we take it that there is an agreement that there shall be a drawback of duty on all boots and shoes exported if they include leather which has paid the tax?

Dr. BURGIN: I stated in my opening remarks that the Finance Acts contain a recognised Section—Section 9 of the Finance Act, 1932, as amended by Section 7 of the Finance Act, 1934—under which an application for drawback can be made. The right hon. Gentleman knows quite well that there is a lag between the putting on of a duty and the application for a drawback. There is a general law under which an application for drawback can be made. What the House is to understand is that, as to the export trade, assurances have been given by the tanners to the committee, which in the opinion of the committee Are satisfactory, which go far towards mitigating any unfortunate results with regard to the export trade. The committee have done their work with the express idea of protecting the export industry from loss.
The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) asked whether these trades are obeying the wage Clause. I hope so, and I hope, if anyone suggests that they are not, a proper protest will be made to the Import Duties Advisory Committee by the opponents of the duty. The fact that a, duty is under consideration is advertised, and 'anyone whose interest it is to oppose it has the opportunity of calling to the attention of the committee any fact relating to the trade which in his opinion should disentitle it to the benefit of the duty. I hope the hon. Member will not consider it his constitutional duty to throw bricks at British industry.

Mr. MANDER: I was anxious to find out whether the Import Duties Advisory Committee were carrying out their statutory duty in doing what I believe every Member of the House, irrespective of party, would desire them to do, that is, if they are given protection, that proper wages should be paid in the industry. To my knowledge, in one industry that was not done to the extent of 100 per cent. I asked the hon. Gentleman whether that was being investigated.

Dr. BURGIN: I do not want in the least to draw a wrong impression from what the hon. Member said.

Mr. MANDER: You have done it.

Dr. BURGIN: I have yet to learn that. The impression that the hon. Member's words made on my mind was that he wanted an assurance that the trade was not committing a breach of what he regarded as proper practice. I prefer to believe that the trade is carrying out the proper practice unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Mr. MANDER: I asked whether the Minister who is defending this Order had satisfied himself that, not the trade but the Import Duties Advisory Committee had carried out their duty. He is attempting to ride off and assume that my sincere and well-meant inquiry had some sinister political motive. That is quite untrue.

Dr. BURGIN: I hope the House will accept my assurance that I am not trying to ride off on anything. I am trying to meet the point. I have no information that in regard to any of these industries the applicants for duties are not observing proper practices. I have equally no information one way or the other as to whether the Import, Duties Advisory Committee regularly put a question to applicants in regard to wages. I imagine it is a matter for opposition to the duty rather than for the applicants to plead affirmatively, but that is pure guess work. I have no information.

Mr. MANDER: The hon. Gentleman said I was always throwing bricks. That is entirely unfair and unfounded. I should like to ask whether it would be in order for a trade union, or for me, or for anyone who knew that proper wages were not being paid, to bring the matter to the attention of the Import Duties Advisory Commitee or some other Department?

Dr. BURGIN: Not to the Import Duties Advisory Committee. There is an established rule that Members of the House should not approach the committee, and it would be a pity if that practice were departed from. But, if the hon. Member has any information that there is a malpractice in any industry, I hope he will give it to my Department so that the matter can be investigated. There is no one who wants more forcibly to champion the rule of good employers


than the trade Ministers in this House. I wish to protest against any suggestion that a British industry has been guilty of that type of complaint unless there is evidence of it.

Mr. MANDER: Will the hon. Gentleman be good enough to withdraw the statement that I was throwing bricks at British industry?

Dr. BURGIN: If I had made such a statement, I would withdraw it at once. I said that I hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not consider it his duty to do it.

Mr. MAN D ER: The hon. Gentleman used the adjective.

Dr. BURGIN: I did. I said I hoped that the hon. Gentleman will not consider it his constitutional duty to throw bricks at British industry. Those were my words.

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: Would not the House be correct in drawing the inference from the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend was taking an undue advantage and making a statement without any grounds whatever The House will remember that in the last Parliament the hon. Member raised this question. Was he doing something which he ought not to do? Surely, it is his duty, if he knows that something occurs, to bring it to the attention of the House. I think that Members of all parties will agree with that.

Dr. BURGIN: What I want to avoid is an assertion without evidence. I there is any suggestion that there is a malpractice let us have it, but do not let us ask "May it be assumed?" that there are malpractices. I do not want anything of that kind. I have no information that there is any malpractice. I do not know whether it is the custom of the Import Duties Advisory Committee to put such a question, and if the hon. Member has evidence he should convey it to me.

Mr. MANDER: I have evidence. It concerns only a very small section of trade, but I certainly will bring it to the attention of the hon. Gentleman, and I still think that he ought to withdraw an absolutely unfounded insinuation.

10.43 p.m.

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: I intervene with some hesitation, and I say that as a matter of courtesy to the Committee. Owing to circumstances over which I had no control I was not here when the Debate began. Nevertheless, I happened to have taken particular interest in the Additional Import Duties (No. 2) Order, which, I imagine, is the primary object of the discussion to-night. A large part of the Debate has ranged round the question of leather. May I cross swords briefly with the Parliamentary Secretary when he said that he hoped that Members of Parliament never approached the Import Duties Advisory Committee? Although we are Members of Parliament we do not cease to be citizens, and I have, on two or three occasions, not as a Member of Parliament, but as having some interest in a particular industry, interviewed members of the Import Duties Advisory Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Certainly, we are not deprived of our rights as citizens. Let us be honest. There are occasions when we may have a personal interest. On one occasion I attended a conference with members of a trade with which I happened to have some association when the Import Duties Advisory Committee were considering an application. I did not go as a Member of this House but because I was personally interested. What would be wrong, to import an Americanism, would be to try to do the "dirty," if I may use such a phrase. That is never likely to arise in this country. I merely mention it because of what the Parliamentary Secretary said. I know it is the case that Members of every party have from time to time been on deputations which have been received by the Import Duties Advisory Committee.
So far as Order No. 3 is concerned, there has been a very long delay between the date on which the report was signed and the date on which the Order was made. It is the longest period that has elapsed and, therefore, if a grievance exists it lies with those who asked for the duty and not with the critics of the duty. The argument in this case is whether you should ever put a duty on something which is classified as a raw material. I see no reason why any commodity should be exempted from tariffs provided they are not likely to be injurious to employment in this country,


and on that test no one can challenge this Order. If the net result of the Order is to increase employment, not diminish it, that is a good reason why we should vote for it. On the other hand, as an ardent Protectionist I have not hesitated to criticise Orders where I thought the net result would be a diminution rather than an increase of employment. That is the test. It does not matter whether you call it raw material or the finished article. The test is what is likely to be the result on employment in this country. I am satisfied, from the point of view of employment in the leather producing and leather using industries, that this Order will mean an increase in employment in this country.
If by any chance there should be a rise in prices—no one will say that an import duty never raises prices, although they have not done so yet—and there is a case for a drawback, then the doors of the Import Duties Advisory Committee are open to any application for a drawback. You do not introduce a drawback on the date that you introduce the duty. You find if any adverse effect has arisen, if there is any substantial degree of prejudice to the export trade in boots or shoes, or in any other product, then the Import Duties Advisory Committee are empowered to grant the necessary drawback in order to protect the export trade. The ardent and enthusiastic Free Traders opposite, who do not show the slightest interest in what I am saying, I do not blame them, who in between the times when they are trying to solve the problems of peace in the world, rather unsuccessfully, occasionally devote some interest to the Import Duties Advisory Committee, have never been able to produce any example where this policy has caused unemployment. Their speeches are entirely based on what will happen thereafter, and when "thereafter" comes they remain dumb and silent—

Mr. MANDER: If the hon. Member had been present during the Debate he would realise that I made not the slightest reference to Free Trade or Protection.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Obviously the hon. Member would not have joined in unless that were at the back of his mind. Why join in unless that were the objection? It would be the first time the hon. Mem-

ber has taken part in a debate on this issue without referring to the fundamental issue or Free Trade or Protection. If his objection has nothing to do with that, I congratulate him on the intellectual progress he has made. For the first time he has admitted that this is a matter of expediency.

Mr. MANDER: I do not think that I have ever intervened in one of these Debates before, and if the hon. Member will read my remarks in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow he will see that his comments are quite irrelevant.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I should have thought that here anything to do with Protection or Free Trade was relevant. But as a rule the hon. Member does not speak, because the hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) says it for him.

10.52 p.m.

Mr. EDE: Having spent the earlier part of the evening enjoyably and festively with the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams), I think that I must protest against his contradiction of the principle laid down by the Minister. The Minister stated distinctly that he thought it was inadvisable that Members of Parliament should approach directly members of the Import Duties Advisory Committee, and one understood that that was a principle which was accepted. But I gather that the hon. Member for South Croydon does not merely say that he does not accept the principle but has on occasion violated it.

Mr. WILLIAMS: May I make it clear? It was not as a Member of Parliament. I suffer from the disability from which the Labour party are relieved, of having to earn my own income, and in that capacity I occasionally have to go through the ordinary proceedings of a citizen, and take a part in those industries with which I am connected. If I belonged to the Labour party, which is sustained by some gigantic party fund, I might not need to do that.

Mr. EDE: I really think that the hon. Member has made his position far worse than it was before he interrupted me, because I understand that part of his profession, according to his own definition, is to approach the Import Duties Advisory Committee.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Surely one is not debarred as a Member of Parliament, when one is connected with certain industries, from exercising the same rights as other citizens have of approaching the tribunal which is concerned with those industries? A Member of Parliament is not debarred as a Member of Parliament from having an argument with an inspector of Income Tax.

Mr. EDE: I do not know what the connection of the hon. Member is with the industries he has alluded to, but I find it difficult not to be a Member of Parliament between the time when the electors return me and when they make a mistake next time, a fate which I have shared with the hon. Member. Supporters of Free Trade and people who desire to see that these imports shall be free from some of the abuses which have been associated with them abroad must have considerable alarm after the contradiction by the hon. Member of the principle laid down by the Minister. If the position of the hon. Member is accepted, no matter how he

may be able to juggle with his own intellect in thinking that he has established some defence, the day is not far distant when there will be people in this House professionally interested in trying to get tariffs, and who will afterwards see that any failure they may have had at the offices of the Import Advisory Committee is put right when the matter comes to this House.

I can only say that I hope the Chief Whip, having heard what was said by the Minister and the repudiation by his very loyal follower who is now sitting immediately behind him, will take steps to make it known that the promises that were made by responsible Members of Parliament from that Box when these duties were introduced will be brought to the notice of Members of this House who feel inclined to forget them when apparently it suits their purpose.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 133; Noes, 77.

Division No. 118.]
AYES.
[10.55 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Porritt, R. W.


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Procter, Major H. A.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Guy, J. C. M.
Radford, E. A.


Apsley, Lord
Hannah, I. C.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.


Aske, Sir R. W.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Ramsden, Sir E.


Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.
Harbord, A.
Rankin, R.


Balfour, Capt. H. H.(Isle of Thanet)
Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)
Holmes, J. S.
Remer, J. R.


Belt, Sir A. L.
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)


Blair, Sir R.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Robinson, J. R, (Blackpool)


Boulton, W. W.
Joel, D. J. B.
Ropner, Colonel L.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)
Rowlands, G.


Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)
Kerr, J. G. (Scottish Universities)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.


Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Salt, E. W.


Bull, B. B.
Leckie, J. A.
Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Liewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Sandys, E. D.


Cartland, J. R. H.
Mac Andrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Channon, H.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Christie, J. A.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Colfox, Major W. P.
Maclay, Hon. J. P.
Smith, L. W. (Hallam)


Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.
Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk N.)
Magnay, T.
Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.


Craven-Ellis, W.
Manningham-Buller, Sir M.
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Crooke, J. S.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Markham, S. F.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cross, R. H.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Tasker, Sir R. I.


Crowder, J. F. E.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Davies, C. (Montgomery)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Tree, A. R. L. F.


De Chair, S. S.
Mitchell. H. (Brentford and Chiswick)
Turton, R. H.


Denville. Alfred
Mitcheson, Sir G. G.
Wakefield, W. W.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Moreing, A. C.
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Duggan, H. J.
Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)
Warrender, Sir V.


Duncan, J. A. L.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Eckersley, P. T.
Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Elmley, Viscount
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Emery, J. F.
Nail, Sir J.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Nicolson, Hon. H. G.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Entwistie, C. F.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Wragg, H.


Findlay, Sir E.
Palmer, G. E. H.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Fleming, E. L.
Peake, O.



Freemantie, Sir F. E.
Penny, Sir G.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Goodman, Col. A. W.
Petherick, M.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert


Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Ward and Major George Davies.


Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.
Plugge, L. F.





NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Harris, Sir P. A.
Richards, R. (Wrexham)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Riley, B.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Rowson, G.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Holdsworth, H.
Salter, Dr. A


Barnes, A. J.
Holland, A.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Barr, J.
Jagger, J.
Sexton, T. M.


Batey, J.
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Short, A.


Broad, F. A.
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.
Silverman, S. S.


Cocks, F. S.
Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Simpson, F. B.


Compton, J.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)


Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Daggar, G.
Kirby, B. V.
Sorensen, R. W.


Dalton, H.
Lathan, G.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Lawson, J. J.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Leonard, W.
Tinker, J. J.


Ede, J. C.
Logan, D. G.
Walker, J.


Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
McGhee, H. G.
Watson, W. McL.


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Maclean, N.
Westwood, J.


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
MacNeill, Weir, L.
Wilkinson, Ellen


Foot, D. M.
Mander, G. le M.
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Gallacher, W.
Markiew, E.
Williams, T (Don Valley)


Garro-Jones, G. M.
Montague, F.
Wilson, C. H (Attercliffe)


George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)
Parker, H. J. H.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)
Potts, J.



Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A
Price, M. P.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Grenfell, D. R.
Pritt, D. N.
Mr. Charleton and Mr. Mathers.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 3) Order, 1936, dated the third day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said third day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 4) Order, 1936, dated the fourth day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said fourth day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 5) Order, 1936, dated the ninth day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said ninth day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, he approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 6) Order, 1936, dated the eleventh day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said eleventh day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]

ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL.

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Thursday.—[Captain Margesson.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — DEPRESSED AREAS (GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

11.6 p.m.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: I wish to draw attention to a principle of administration in the Ministry of Labour which I believe to be inequitable in its general application, but with which I am principally concerned in its application to the problem in general and to the constituency which I have the honour to represent in particular. I refer to the inclusion of certain areas as depressed areas for the purposes of securing preference in the allocation of Government contracts. Under the Special Areas (Development and Improvement) Act, 1934, certain areas are given decided advantages by the State. I should not be in order in dealing with suggestions for the amendment of that Act, but the Minister, in the exercise of his administrative functions, has brought into operation another list of scheduled areas which will receive a preference, other things being equal, in the allocation of Government contracts. I wish, first of all, to submit that the principle of scheduling depressed areas is unreliable. We all know that areas which are depressed in one period become prosperous in the next. It is a very short time


ago, for example, that the cotton industry, the coal industry, and the shipping industry were at the peak of prosperity. A few years pass, and they become in the depths of depression. Similarly, a very short time ago the engineering and iron and steel industries were in a state of serious depression, and now they are restored to comparative prosperity. I therefore suggest that it is wrong to lay down in a statutory schedule, and also in an administrative schedule, areas which are to receive certain privileges by the State.
The Minister has included certain areas which will receive preference in the allocation of Government contracts, and he has laid down this criterion for those areas, that, provided that 25 per cent. or more of the men over IS are unemployed, that area shall receive preference. I contend that that is a very unsound criterion to set up. It leaves wholly out of account the fact that in that particular area there may be an enormous number of women unemployed or juveniles unemployed, or there may be a considerably larger amount expended in the distribution of Poor Law relief to the able-bodied poor. That is to pick on merely one indication of depression and ignore all the others, and say that any town with this one criterion of depression shall receive preference in the allocation of Government contracts while other towns on its very border, which may be far more depressed than the town scheduled, are excluded from that preference.
I expect the Minister will say we cannot give any privilege to any area without giving grounds of discontent or complaint in the adjoining areas. He may say that it is quite impossible to draw up a schedule which satisfies everyone and that it is difficult to draw up a schedule which completely satisfies anyone, but his contention will be that a schedule must be drawn. I contend that it was inadvisable to draw up a schedule and that, if he must have a schedule, he should not take merely one indication of depression and allow that to be his guide in deciding whether they shall receive preference in the allocation of Government contracts or not. What I wanted to ask him first was, whether he would abolish altogether his administrative schedule of the depressed areas and allow Government contracts to be allocated

with regard to all the circumstances of any given area? If he declines to do that and says that he must have a schedule of some kind, then I ask him to make that schedule more elastic in order to bring into it districts which, although not having, perhaps, as great a percentage of unemployed men as the preferred area, are yet, judged by all other relevant criteria, just as distressed as those included in the schedule.
I would ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to be good enough not to give me the kind of answer which he gave to a Parliamentary question. I asked him a question which I couched in very clear terms and he thought fit to answer it merely by recapitulating what he was doing. My question had reference to what he was doing and asked him whether he could change it. It was unnecessary to repeat what he had already stated and I hope he will be able to do something to meet me in behalf of the constituency I represent.

11.13 p.m.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Before the Minister replies may I add one word and one point to that which is made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro-Jones)? I would ask the Minister to give the House some information not only as to his ground for selecting areas as distressed, but as to how he delimits those areas. I have supplied him with particulars of one exceedingly depressed area, a small village that is tremendously depressed, and has been so for many years, but because this village is centred in the midst of an agricultural district it cannot be, and has not been, scheduled as distressed. Yet this village has no work whatever. It has no employment of any kind whatsoever, and it feels itself very seriously handicapped in relation to other towns where there is in fact less unemployment, and yet these other towns have preference for employment when given. I would ask the Minister, in support of the plea put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen, that if we must have distressed areas—there are disadvantages as well as advantages in having them—we should have some clear and well understood explanation of how the Government intend to fix the limits of those areas as well as the conditions upon which the area are formed.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. ELLIS SMITH: I want to associate myself with the issue raised by my hon. Friend and to give two or three illustrations. The first is in regard to certain parts of Lancashire which are just as depressed as any other parts of the country. Because it is confined to a small area, there is not the same notice taken of the position as there is in a bigger area. The same thing applies to North Staffordshire. There is one place, Kidsgrove, where the percentage of unemployment is as great as, if not greater than, that in any other part of the country. Because it has not been scheduled it does not come within the category of those receiving preference when certain orders are being given out. A well known firm quoted for orders that were being given for locomotives, but because it did not come within the area specified, it was not in the position to be dealt with on the same basis as other firms in scheduled areas. I hope the Minister will reconsider the policy with regard to this question.

11.17 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead): The hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro-Jones) referred first to the Special Areas. The Special Areas are, of course, laid down by Act of Parliament, but that is not so with the scheduled depressed areas. Those areas are left to the discretion of the Minister. The schedule was originally instituted in connection with the industrial transference scheme. At the time the standard which was taken—there was no statutory basis for it—was for the most part that 40 per cent. of the insured males of 18 years and over should be employed in the coal, iron and steel or ship-building industries and that there should be 15 per cent. of them unemployed, over the period of the last 12 months. There were certain additions made to the original list, including certain parts of the depressed cotton areas of Lancashire. As the hon. Member was so particular in his enjoinment on me not to tell him anything that is actually happening I will not tell the House again the qualifications which are necessary for inclusion in the existing list. I think, however, that the hon. Member overlooks one point. He says quite rightly that an area may be very

depressed at one time and after a period, perhaps not a very long period, may fall upon a period of prosperity. That is true, and under the procedure that we adopt we make allowance for that fact. The present list, for instance, is the subject of revision by us at periods of not less than six months. That, I think, is quite a reasonable period for revision. One wants to insure that the criteria which qualify an area I to be treated as depressed will allow of some degree of stability. That is why we take the average for the past 12 months. At the same time we have to make allowance for industries which pass from prosperity to depression or from depression to prosperity.
That Schedule is not, then, something which remains in perpetuity and incapable of change or adaptation. We can and intend to change it and adapt it in accordance with charges in the industrial circumstances. The hon. Member then went on to ask why we applied this particular test alone, and proceeded, which is always helpful, to make some remarks for me. If in this House we were afraid of boundaries we should never do anything because there are always some people or places which are just outside the boundaries. This would be the end of legislation in this House. Whatever standards we fix there will always be people or areas which are just inside the one or outside the other. The hon. Member suggested as a standard the number of people on Poor Law relief. One disadvantage of that would be that a certain number of those on Poor Law relief are aged people, and some are outside the industrial field. Also, one has to remember that for the most part those on Poor Law relief are registered at the exchanges, and are therefore already included in the total unemployment figures, so perhaps the difference between the two is not so great as the hon. Member suggests. I think it would be difficult to find a more suitable test than the rate of unemployment in a district.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman is so satisfied that this is a satisfactory and infallible test, why did he make an exception to that test in the cotton areas on account of the number of women workers there? Should he not take into account in other areas the percentage of juvenile and other workers?

Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: We took into consideration the percentage of women in the cotton areas in Lancashire because in our opinion there are exceptional factors in connection with female employment in those areas. I think opinion generally would be inclined to agree that there are exceptional factors in that case which do not for the most part exist in other areas. The right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) wanted to know on what principles we had delimited these areas. The delimitation is within the discretion of the Minister; as I have said, there is no statutory basis; but it is clear that there must be some limit to the smallness of the areas over which one can apply this test or qualification. I should like to set hon. Members' minds partially, perhaps, at rest by explaining the particular nature of the preference which is given to the scheduled depressed areas. The consideration is that, other things being equal, the Government preference for contracts shall be given in these scheduled depressed areas. I stress particularly the words "other things being equal." That may meet the point of the hon. Member.
The phrase is intended to be interpreted in the full sense. It includes technical considerations and all very high or particular specialisation. Where you get all other things equal, the preference of Government contracts will be given to the scheduled depressed areas. Some hon. Members seem to have the impression that the preference is almost tantamount to excluding the rest of the country from any benefit that Government contracts may provide. That is not so. Before this preference is given to the firms in the scheduled depressed areas, all the other things relating to the contract must be equal. There need be no fear on the part of hon. Members that this sympathy for the depressed areas means that the scheduled depressed area forms a close corporation with a complete monopoly of tendering for and being given Government contracts. The hon. Member asks

me now—and I am sorry if I misunderstood his original question—as to whether in point of fact we intend to alter the qualification which we have now adopted. He also expresses the hope that all these questions of special preferences for particular areas might be done away with, so that you might have a sort of Free Trade in preferences. We consider that the general principle of preferences for certain depressed areas to be sound, and at the moment—although we are always willing to benefit by experience—we consider the complete qualification and standard employed to be sound also.

11.28 p.m.

Mr. DINGLE FOOT: I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will reconsider in future the question of taking into account the Poor Law figures. He said that they represented for a large part old people who were riot available for industry—

Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: I did not say for a large part, but I said that at all events they were included.

Mr. FOOT: I quite agree, but where in a certain area you have, over the past three or four years, a constant and substantial increase in the Poor Law figures, which cannot be accounted for by the old people who are not available for industry, I submit that that ought to be taken into account. It is perfectly true, also, that the Poor Law relief figures include to a certain extent those who register at the exchanges, but, although that may be so, and although the Poor Law figures may not give much assistance in showing the extent of unemployment, at any rate they help to show, in any particular area, the kind of unemployment that exists, and to a certain extent the duration of unemployment among the people concerned. For these reasons I hope that in future the Poor Law figures will be taken into account in making up this schedule.

It being Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.